Word age-of-acquisition (AoA) affects reading. The mapping hypothesis predicts AoA effects when input--output mappings are arbitrary. In Spanish, the orthography-to-phonology mappings required for word naming are consistent; therefore, no AoA effects are expected. Nevertheless, AoA effects have been found, motivating the present investigation of…

This investigation is an initial examination of possible enhancement of executive function through a dual-language (50:50) education model. The ethnically diverse, low-income sample of 120 children from Grades K, 2, and 4 consisted of approximately equal numbers of children enrolled in dual-language and traditional classrooms. Dual-language…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of an intensive psychosocial intervention on the executive functioning (EF) in children with ADHD. The treatment was carried out in a coordinated manner over a period of 10 weeks with 27 children with ADHD aged 7 to 10, their parents, and their teachers. A battery of neuropsychological tasks was…

The ability to mitigate interference is of central importance to cognition. Previous research has provided conflicting accounts about whether operations that resolve interference are singular in character or form a family of functions. Here, the authors examined the relationship between interference-resolution processes acting on working memory…

Mental chronometry (MC) studies cognitive processes measured by time. It provides an absolute, ratio scale. The limitations of instrumentation and statistical analysis caused the early studies in MC to be eclipsed by the "paper-and-pencil" psychometric tests started by Binet. However, they use an age-normed, rather than a ratio scale, which…

Poor performance on the antisaccade task has been proposed as a candidate endophenotype in schizophrenia. Caveats to this proposal, however, include inconsistent findings in first-degree relatives of individuals with schizophrenia, and substantial heterogeneity in individuals with the disorder. In this study, we examined antisaccade performance in…

Fernandez-Duque and Knight (2008, Experiment 4) described an across-task effect of endogenously generated, anticipatory control: A cue that predicted conflict in an upcoming Eriksen flanker task modulated conflict regulation in a subsequent number Stroop task. In 3 experiments, 1 of which included an exact replication condition, we failed to…

Training in process control environments requires operators to be prepared for temporal and adaptive transfer of skill. Three training methods were compared with regard to their effectiveness in supporting transfer: Drill & Practice (D&P), Error Training (ET), and procedure-based and error heuristics training (PHT). Communication…

This dissertation examines linguistic spatial frame of reference (FoR) usage across three cohorts, detailing the lexical and structural realization of particular spatial FoR classes within each linguistic community, as well as which linguistic and nonlinguistic factors are predictors of spatial FoR class usage. This study was designed to determine…

Emerging pragmatic language skills involve social, cognitive and linguistic abilities, including children's awareness of the conversational partner's mental states. The present study investigated the relation between children's theory of mind (ToM) and features of pragmatic language skills assessed through narrative discourse. One hundred and…

One of the major innovations of the "TOEFL iBT"® test is the incorporation of integrated tasks complementing the independent tasks to which examinees respond. In addition, examinees must produce discourse in both modes (speech and writing). The validity argument for the TOEFL iBT includes the claim that examinees vary their discourse in…

The goal of this study was to compare the literacy skills of adult native English and native Spanish ABE speakers. Participants were 169 native English speakers and 124 native Spanish speakers recruited from five prior research projects. The results showed that the native Spanish speakers were less skilled on morphology and passage comprehension…

The current study investigated the impact of recasts together with form-focused instruction (FFI) on the development of second language speech perception and production of English /?/ by Japanese learners. Forty-five learners were randomly assigned to three groups--FFI recasts, FFI only, and Control--and exposed to four hours of communicatively…

This study examined syntactic comprehension in French children with dyslexia in both listening and reading. In the first syntactic comprehension task, a partial version of the Epreuve de Comprehension syntaxico-semantique (ECOSSE test; French adaptation of Bishop's test for receptive grammar test) children with dyslexia performed at a lower level…

Some have argued in favor of translation in the L2 classroom (Danchev, 1983; Levenston, 1985; Ballester Casado, 1991; Newson, 1998; Malloy, 2001; Bonyadi, 2003; Colina, 2006; Kulwindr, 2005; Petrocchi, 2006; House, 2008), while others have argued against it (Sweet, 1899/1964; Jespersen, 1901/1904; Lado, 1957, 1964; Gatenby, 1967; Sankey, 1991),…