Purpose: There is currently little evidence reporting the typical morphology of the palatoglossus (PG) muscle. The primary purpose of this exploratory study is to determine whether magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods used to quantify the morphology of the levator veli palatini (LVP) muscle can be applied to the PG. The secondary purpose is to…

Math anxiety is a negative affective reaction in situations concerning mathematics and is related to poor math performance and a lower mathematical self-concept. Gender differences appear in math anxiety even though gender differences in math abilities are non-existent or minimal in effect size. In the present study, gender and age differences in…

This article closely examines (a) the "representational" connotation which is often implicit in many analyses of the scientific knowledge which children have (or have not) acquired when they are asked to say or show what they know and (b) the still common-place presumption that recollections are akin to the extraction of ideas from a…

Background & aims: Throughout typical development, children prioritize different perceptual, social, and linguistic cues to learn words. The earliest acquired words are often those that are perceptually salient and highly imageable. Imageability, the ease in which a word evokes a mental image, is a strong predictor for word age of acquisition…

We investigated mental rotation in children by systematically varying the adult cube aggregate's set size, rotation angle, and picture/depth plane rotations in a new test. Eighty 4- to 11-year-old mainly middle-class children (British Indian and British African majority and white minority; 40 girls and 40 boys) were assessed using the new…

There is evidence that spatial thinking is malleable, and that spatial and mathematical skills are associated (Mix et al. [2016] "Journal of Experimental Psychology: General," 145, 1206; Mix et al. [2017] "Journal of Cognition and Development," 18, 465; Uttal et al. [2013] "Psychological Bulletin," 139, 352). However,…

As children develop conversational skills such as taking turns and openly listening to ideas, they often experience conflicts and inequity within collaborative dialogue for learning. Previous research suggests that increasing children's awareness about their own behaviors during collaboration may help them adjust their behaviors and become better…

Past research has shown that children's mental rotation skills are malleable and can be improved through action experience--physically rotating objects--or gesture experience--showing how objects could rotate (e.g., Frick, Ferrara, & Newcombe, 2013; Goldin-Meadow et al., 2012; Levine, Goldin-Meadow, Carlson, & Hemani-Lopez, 2018). These…

This study investigated the understudied area of virtual reality (VR) creation among elementary-aged youth, exploring their engagement in VR creation and the ways in which educators can facilitate this creative process. Using an embedded case study, the researcher examined how the youth visualize writing using the VR creation tool, CoSpaces. To…

Purpose: The study examined the effects of imageability and phonological neighborhood density on the acquisition of word production in Czech, controlling for part-of-speech class, word length, and word frequency. Phonological neighborhood density is of interest because previous research has not examined highly inflected languages such as Czech.…

We reviewed 12 studies in which the researcher taught problem-solving strategies, such as self-questioning and visual imagining, to children and adolescents with and without disabilities to facilitate the learning of math, spelling, play/social, and communication skills. We analyzed these studies in terms of types of problem-solving strategies,…

The use of planar and volumetric geometric figures in the form of didactic games and exercises, the participants in the experiment showed a significant improvement in the results of the level of spatial representation compared with the control group. The methodology of the use of didactic games and exercises with geometric figures showed the…

Mental imagery has been implicated in anxiety disorders in adults, but has not been investigated in child and adolescent populations. Anxiety is highly prevalent in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and as people with ASD are often thought of as "visual thinkers," the potential role of distressing imagery in children with ASD merits…

Spatial reasoning plays a vital role in choice of and success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers, yet the topic is scarce in grade school curricula. We conjecture that this absence may be due to limited knowledge of how spatial reasoning is discussed and engaged across STEM professions. This study aimed to address…

The longitudinal relations of domain-general and numerical skills at ages 6-7 years to 3 cognitive domains of arithmetic learning, namely knowing (written computation), applying (arithmetic word problems), and reasoning (arithmetic reasoning) at age 11, were examined for a representative sample of 378 Finnish children. The results showed that…