Explores relationships among school students' (n=189) meaningful learning orientation, reasoning ability and acquisition of meaningful understandings of genetics topics, and ability to solve genetics problems. Results indicate that meaningful learning orientation best predicted students' understanding of genetics interrelationships while reasoning…

Recent research suggests that thinking of learning as an activity of the brain will lead to greater understanding of how and why students learn and how faculty can better facilitate learning. Discusses: genetic contributions; epigenetic growth; the synapse; stabilizing synapses; pedagogy; the role of emotions; kinds of learning; active learning;…

Presents an activity that uses chenille stems, colored yarn, plastic straws, and ingenuity to make a low-cost manipulative kit for modeling mitosis and meiosis. (ASK)

Describes a method for working with Coomassie Blue to analyze banding patterns of purified eukaryotic cell membrane proteins. (SAH)

Assessed the language development of 2,898 pairs of 2-year-old twins born in England and Wales using the MacArthur Communicative language Development Inventory, which assesses vocabulary and grammar. Moderate heritabilities were found for both. (Author/VWL)

Describes an interactive game designed to help students see and understand the dynamic relationship between DNA, RNA, and proteins. Appropriate for either a class or laboratory setting, following a lecture session about protein synthesis. (DDR)

Describes a card game that illustrates natural selection acting on random mutations with or without cumulative selection. (YDS)

Examines the correlates of spelling impairment in children with histories of early speech sound disorders. Reveals that children with preschool speech sound and language problems become poorer spellers at school age than did children with preschool speech sound disorders only. Concludes that familial aggregation of spelling disorders suggests a…

Explains Occam's razor which is a guiding principle in scientific methodology. Describes a genetics problem to demonstrate Occam's razor. (YDS)

Introduces a series of molecular genetics laboratories where students pick a single colony from a Drosophila melanogester embryo cDNA library and purify the plasmid, then analyze the insert through restriction digests and gel electrophoresis. (Author/YDS)

Notes that a modest linear relation was found between visual contrast sensitivity across the broad range of word-reading skill in a population of children with higher word-reading tended to have higher contrast sensitivity. Suggests that the modest shared variance between word reading and contrast sensitivity may be due primarily to environmental…

This editorial outlines how developments in our understanding of genetic information may raise new challenges for people with learning disabilities, their parents, and professionals working in learning disability services. It concludes by highlighting some key aspects professionals need to consider if they are to support effectively people who…

This study evaluated cytogenetic and molecular parameters in 30 Brazilian youths with autism or other pervasive developmental disorders (PDD). The high frequency of chromosomopathies found support the hypothesis that PDDs may develop as a consequence to chromosomal abnormalities and justify the cytogenetic and molecular assessment during diagnosis…

Studied whether correlations between family characteristics and children's IQs represented causal effects in a sample of 1,349 cousin pairs from 344 families. Results suggest that correlations do not represent pure causal effects and are, for an important part, confounded by genetic and environmental "third variables" shared by extended…

A survey of 42 state boards of nursing and examiniaton of 30 textbooks found that, despite advances in genetics research, few boards require genetics in nursing curricula. Textbooks had minimal genetics content. (SK)