This study quantified the influence of visual attention therapy on the reading comprehension of 30 6th-grade children with moderate reading disabilities (RD). Experimental subjects received 12 one-hour sessions of individually monitored, computer-based attention therapy programs. After 12 weeks, the experimental subjects, but not the controls,…

Interest in U-shaped development has itself undergone a U-shaped progression. Twenty-five years ago, interest in U-shaped development was high. This interest was evident at a 1978 conference in Tel Aviv on "U-shaped Behavioral Growth" that resulted in the publication of a book of the same title 4 years later (Strauss, 1982). The breadth…

The recently published fourth edition of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV) represents a considerable departure from previous versions of the scale. The structure of the instrument has changed, and some subtests have been added and others deleted. The technical manual for the WISC-IV provided evidence supporting this new…

Early intervention approaches for facilitating motor development in infants and children with Down syndrome have traditionally emphasised the acquisition of motor milestones. As increasing evidence suggests that motor milestones have limited predictive power for long-term motor outcomes, researchers have shifted their focus to understanding the…

Much of what psychologists know about infant perception and cognition is based on habituation, but the process itself is still poorly understood. Here the authors offer a dynamic field model of infant visual habituation, which simulates the known features of habituation, including familiarity and novelty effects, stimulus intensity effects, and…

Technology that helps students view images in three dimensions (3-D) can support a broad range of learning styles. "Geo-Wall systems" are visualization tools that allow scientists, teachers, and students to project stereographic images and view them in 3-D. We developed and presented 3-D visualization exercises in several undergraduate courses.…

This study examines how task characteristics (the number of visual chunks and the amount of planning time) and test-taker characteristics (graph familiarity) influence the perceptual and cognitive processes involved in graph comprehension, the strategies used in describing graphs, and the scores obtained on the graph description task in a…

This follow-up study compares cognitive and language aspects of a group of Italian children ages 4-6 years, who had shown delayed expressive language abilities at 24 months of age (late talkers), with those of a group of children with a history of normal expressive language development (average talkers). Children were given a battery of…

The present work investigated cognitive, linguistic and narrative abilities in a group of children suffering from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, an allelic X-linked recessive disorder caused by mutations in the gene encoding dystrophin. The patients showed mildly reduced IQ with lower Verbal than Performance Intelligence Quotient and were mildly…

This paper examines variations of text density levels for learning in a computer-based instruction (CBI) tutorial from an integrated perspective, and addresses the following questions: (1) What is the text density? (2) What are the relationships among text density approaches? and (3) What are the contributions of text density for learning and how…

This study explored relationships between intelligence and visual motor ability and patterns of impairment of visual motor ability in children prenatally affected by alcohol. Fourteen children (mean age 8.2 years) diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and 50 children with possible fetal alcohol effects (FAE) were assessed with the Bender…

This study investigated the effectiveness of color coding, accomplished by highlighting, used to help students differentiate between exact meaning (explicit information) and implied meaning (implicit information) in both narrative (short story) and expository texts. Subjects were 78 sixth-grade students randomly enrolled in four language arts…

The historical development of learning style inventories is examined from the dichotomous concepts of cognitive styles to multidimensional assessment. Based on a series of experiments on vertical perception, H. A. Witkin formed the concepts of field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles. Using the term "learning styles"…

A computer-assisted instruction (CAI) module on polymers was used to introduce chemistry teachers (n=64) to the variety of possibilities and benefits of using courseware in the current chemistry curriculum in Israel. From an analysis of a pre-and post-attitude questionnaire regarding the use of computers in chemistry teaching, it was concluded…

There are two categories of representations: figurative and non-figurative. Within the category of figurative representations, there are two groups: visuals and graphic symbols. Graphic symbols include pictorial symbols, abstract symbols, and arbitrary symbols. Symbols can be used for identification, overview, supplying instructions, position,…