The resting regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) patterns related to co-occurring symptoms such as inattention, hyperactivity, neurological soft signs and motor problems have not yet been disclosed in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In this study thirteen adults with ASD and ten matched neurotypical controls underwent PET. The scores of rating…

What are the effects of experience on subsequent learning? We explored the effects of language-specific word order knowledge on the acquisition of sequential conditional information. Korean and English adults were engaged in a sequence learning task involving three different sets of stimuli: auditory linguistic (nonsense syllables), visual…

Research suggests that listener perceptions of a speaker's oral language use, or a speaker's "comprehensibility," may be influenced by a variety of speaker-, listener-, and context-related factors. Primary speaker factors include aspects of the speaker's proficiency in the target language such as pronunciation and…

First conceptualized in the 1960s, the term culture-bound disorders refers to a classification of mental disorders or syndromes that are considered specific or closely related to cultural factors and or particular ethnocultural groups. In Japan, two culture-bound disorders, "taijin kyofusho" and "hikikomori," have seized the…

The authors critically analyze how the concept of the drama triangle--part of the game theory associated with transactional analysis--can be used by post secondary instructors teaching online to build a sense of community and decrease students' dependence on instructors in discussion forums. The article begins with an overview of sense of…

Fifteen children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and twenty-one children without ASD completed six perceptual tasks designed to characterize the nature of the audiovisual processing difficulties experienced by children with ASD. Children with ASD scored significantly lower than children without ASD on audiovisual tasks involving human faces…

Purpose: To examine development of sensitivity to auditory and visual temporal processes in children and the association with standardized measures of auditory processing and communication. Methods: Normative data on tests of visual and auditory processing were collected on 18 adults and 98 children aged 6-10 years of age. Auditory processes…

Teaching students to use and interpret representations in science is critically important if they are to become scientifically literate and learn how to communicate their understandings and learning in science. This study involved 248 students (119 boys and 129 girls) from 26 grade 6 teachers' classes in nine primary schools in Brisbane,…

This exploratory case study, arising from a longitudinal project into the establishment of a new secondary school in New Zealand, examines reflective practice through critical friend roles among staff. The paper describes, through the lens of Bourdieu's logic of practice, the implementation of a critical friendship approach linked to the school…

Research Findings: The present study evaluated the impact of a working memory (WM) stimulation program on the development of WM and early literacy skills (ELS) in preschoolers from socioeconomically deprived rural and urban schools in Chile. The sample consisted of 268 children, 144 in the intervention group and 124 in the comparison group. The…

While a number of studies have examined outcomes associated with early intervention programs that have a financial aid component, few have examined the experiences of student beneficiaries of those programs and the administrators charged with carrying out state mandates associated with the implementation of the programs. This gap in the literature…

Equipping teachers to use data is a critical piece of the school improvement puzzle. To help early career teachers (ECT) develop data-use acumen, some districts utilize mentoring supports. While research on mentoring in general is well-developed, research on how mentoring can or does support data-informed practice is not. To address this gap, we…

A basic consideration in large-scale assessments that use constructed response (CR) items, such as essays, is how to allocate the essays to the raters that score them. Designs that are used in practice are incomplete, in that each essay is scored by only a subset of the raters, and also unbalanced, in that the number of essays scored by each rater…

While women have made significant progress in the work force and in education, gender gaps still exist in many industries and occupations, including science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. This research aims to understand how undergraduate women negotiate gender within STEM fields, looking specifically at these women's…

In 2009 the Group of Eight (Go8) commissioned market research to examine the attitudes, perceptions and experiences of Australia as a destination for study at the Higher Research Degree level. This backgrounder highlights some of the positive aspects of the Australian experience. The top five aggregated strengths of Australia as a research…