An Amiga 500 microcomputer with a talking word processor was used by an Australian visually impaired elementary school pupil, to provide an alternative to braille in using text and writing. This article reviews the relevant literature, explores the challenges and limitations posed by the technology, and offers a case study of the student and her…

Examined how exposure to a program of fractal computer graphics affected the perceptual sensitivity of sixth-grade students (n=197) to the natural visual environment. MANCOVA analysis of collected data and students' written responses to questions indicated that environmental perceptual sensitivity was higher for subjects exposed to fractal images.…

Identified the acoustic features of the vowels produced by Hebrew speakers differing in age and sex. Ninety speakers were recorded. Vowels were presented in a nonword context that was placed in a meaningful Hebrew sentence. Results are discussed. (Author/VWL)

Computational models of infant categorization often fail to elaborate the transitional mechanisms that allow infants to achieve adult performance. In this article, we apply a successful connectionist model of adult category learning to developmental data. The Supervised and Unsupervised Stratified Adaptive Incremental Network (SUSTAIN) model is…

The "Central Dogma" of genetics states that one gene, located in a DNA molecule, is ultimately translated into one protein. As important as this idea is, many teachers shy away from teaching the actual mechanism of gene translation, and many students find the concepts abstract and inaccessible. This article describes a unit, called Genetics…

Students with multiple disabilities, such as severe to profound mental retardation combined with motor and visual impairment, are usually unable to engage in constructive activity or play a positive role in their daily context. Microswitches are technical tools that may help them improve their status by allowing them to control environmental…

This article explores the synergy that can be created when concept-mapping techniques are used in collaboration with the construction of PowerPoint presentations to increase the richness of the learning experience. Some weaknesses of the typical PowerPoint format are highlighted with a description of how they can be overcome through a more…

Photovoice is an educational action research tool that embraces visual communication through photography and allows for individualization. In this article, the author describes how a visual teaching method known as photovoice led to improved engagement with peers and learning materials for two young boys with autism. The author also describes how…

The Wada test is at present the method of choice for preoperative assessment of patients who require surgery close to cortical language areas. It is, however, an invasive test with an attached morbidity risk. By now, an alternative to the Wada test is to combine a lexical word generation paradigm with non-invasive imaging techniques. However,…

Within the broad perspective of school and social exclusion, this article pays attention to an important factor of exclusion: overweight and obesity in primary school children. An interdisciplinary research was conducted and aimed at the study of social representations and practices surrounding food which primary school children, their parents and…

This study investigated the perception of place and secondary articulation contrasts in different syllable positions by Russian and Japanese listeners. The consonants involved in the study were the Russian plain (velarized) and palatalized labial and coronal voiceless stops in syllable-initial and syllable-final positions at word boundaries. The…

Evidence suggests that autism is associated with impaired emotion perception, but it is unknown how early such impairments are evident. Furthermore, most studies that have assessed emotion perception in children with autism have required verbal responses, making results difficult to interpret. This study utilized high-density event-related…

This paper addresses the scarcity of research on depictions and layout in sex education materials. It is argued that pictures and layout can inform an analysis of social stratification based on visual access. This process of social organization is located using four theoretical models. However these models do not lend themselves to a close reading…

Two experiments examined reliability and classification accuracy of a narration-based dynamic assessment task. Purpose: The first experiment evaluated whether parallel results were obtained from stories created in response to 2 different wordless picture books. If so, the tasks and measures would be appropriate for assessing pretest and posttest…

Besides phonotactic principles, orthographies entail graphotactic rules for which the reader must convert a phonological representation on the basis of spelling adaptation rules. In the present study, the learnability of such rules will be investigated with reference to Dutch. Although Dutch orthography can be considered highly regular, there are…