Data were collected regarding the problem of the effects of the Human Development Program procedures on the generation of linguistic tools for the written expression of feelings. Two classes of elementary students participated in the experiment, one a sixth grade of denied children and the other a fifth grade identified as gifted on an…

Paired-associate learning efficiency was assessed within four low-SES ethnic populations (black, Chinese-American, Latino-American, and white) as a function of presentation conditions and method of measurement (verbal recall vs. pictorial recognition). A mixed-list paired-associate task was administered individually to 40 second grade children…

Groups of mentally retarded subjects matched for sex, chronological age, mental age, and length of institutionalization were observed on three reaction time tasks for which pre-response complexity varied. Down's Syndrome subjects did not differ from epileptic and undifferentiated retarded subjects in reaction time performance on any of the tasks.…

Results of four experiments show that developmental differences in elaborative conceptual processing at acquisition and retrieval contribute independently to developmental increases in recall. Item identification processes for both words and pictures constrain children's elaborative processing. The constraints are time limited. (RH)

Explored the notion that children's difficulty in reading is a sign of a general inability to selectively attend to parts of perceptual wholes. Children and adults classified triads of spoken syllables and visual objects. Classification of speech was related to reading and spelling ability, but not to classification of visual stimuli. (BC)

Describes a study that was conducted to examine the effects of captioned video material of varying difficulty on intermediate and advanced English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students' comprehension with videotaped episodes presenting low and high audio/video correlation. Captions were found to be more important for low audio/video correlation. (17…

We investigated the relationship between three potential markers for reading difficulties (phonemic awareness, verbal short-term memory, and rapid automatized naming) and students' responsiveness to Reading Recovery instruction. At pretest, students' most prevalent weakness was on phonemic awareness, but more than half were below average on rapid…

Autism is a life-long, complex developmental disorder that causes impairment in the way individuals process information. Autism belongs to heterogeneous categories of developmental disabilities where neurological disorders lead to deficits in a child's ability to communicate, understand language, play, develop social skills, and relate to others.…

Using life-affirming values as a starting point, authors conducted action research to investigate ways of enabling pupils to experience freedom of choice, and to participate creatively in class activities, thus allowing them to begin to enjoy the subject of agriculture. The research problem was: How to encourage pupils to independently and freely…

Background: Figurative language, such as metaphor and metonymy, is very common in daily language use. Its underlying cognitive processes are sometimes viewed as lying at the interface of language and thought. Williams syndrome, which is a rare genetic developmental disorder, provides an opportunity to study this interface because individuals with…

Emotion recognition is a critical life skill children need for mental health promotion to meet the complexities and challenges of growing up in the world today. Five nursing students and their instructor designed "Emotion Locomotion," a program for children ages 6-8 during a public health nursing practicum for an inner-city parochial school.…

The relationship between written words and their pronunciation varies considerably among different orthographic systems, and these variations have repercussions on learning to read. Children whose languages have deep orthographies must learn to pronounce larger units, such as rhymes, morphemes, or whole words, to achieve the correct pronunciation…

The value of waveform displays as visual feedback was explored in a training study involving perception and production of L2 Japanese by beginning-level L1 English learners. A pretest-posttest design compared auditory-visual (AV) and auditory-only (A-only) Web-based training. Stimuli were singleton and geminate /t,k,s/ followed by /a,u/ in two…

We examined the impact of using an animated software program (Team Up With Timo) on the expressive and receptive language abilities of five children ages 5-9 in a self-contained Learning and Language Disabilities class. We chose to use Team Up With Timo (Animated Speech Corporation) because it allows the teacher to personalize the animation for…

The development of language and literacy is the foundation for all other learning. This statement is the guiding philosophy at the Iowa School for the Deaf (ISD). Teachers at ISD believe that intensive, highly structured early intervention and education work best to support cognitive and communication development in their students. However, little…