An intervention with two nonverbal elementary students with severe/profound mental retardation involved training the students to use badges showing play activities and then implementing use of the badges in a free play situation with nondisabled age-appropriate peers. Increased use of play organizers, initiations, and sharing resulted. (DB)

The authors of EC 606 783 examine the background of instructive feedback stimuli either related or unrelated to target behaviors, devised for students with disabilities. Issues discussed include the selection of feedback stimuli, presentation of feedback stimuli, and unique applications of instructive feedback. (DB)

Children from kindergarten through third grade were shown pictures of men and women in traditional, nontraditional, or neutral gender roles. Data from subsequent recall tests revealed biases toward gender stereotypes irrespective of whether the pictures were presented quickly or slowly, or with or without labels. (BC)

Describes several ways to demonstrate the relationship between various aspects of auditory stimulation and sensation. Discusses the equipment required to hear and to visualize simultaneously a variety of auditory signals. States that these demonstrations allow students to learn more about sensory processing in general and auditory function in…

One-hundred two undergraduates studied a thematic map and read related text, with the order of presentation varied and half receiving a verbal prime related to the theme. Map-first students recalled more and made more correct inferences. Verbal priming did not affect theme-related recall or inference. (SLD)

Examined the use of the TREC Information Retrieval Test Collection for evaluating visual information retrieval interfaces (VIRI). Found that TREC data sets were suitable as development tools for VIRIs and traditional information retrieval systems and that the computational cost of organizing data into useful visual fields were high and related to…

This study examined the effect of delayed reinforcement on mathematics performance by four fourth graders and the effect of programming stimuli common to reinforcement conditions on the maintenance of their performance. Participants exhibited similar levels of responding during intermittent and continuous reinforcement. Responding continued for a…

Investigates possible test stimuli effects as causes for variations in results of research on children's preference for compositional balance as related to age threshold and developmental trend. Finds several test stimuli effects that could have interfered with previous studies. Concludes by noting implications for art education. (DSK)

Two experiments examined phonological priming in children and adults using a cross-modal picture-word interference task. Pictures of familiar objects were presented on a computer screen, while interfering words were presented over headphones. Results indicate that priming effects reach a peak during a time when articulatory information is being…

Examines whether mothers' verbal input at 3 years of age that specifies relations between objects, actions, and concepts (scaffolding) relates to children's development of verbal and nonverbal cognitive skills from 3 through 6 years of age. For all children scaffolding predicated verbal and nonverbal skills even after controlling for families'…

Examined degree to which analytic and holistic modes of processing play a role in children's and adults' categorization of faces. Found a developmental trend from analytic to holistic processing and an effect of face inversion with increasing age. Seven-year-olds processed faces comparably to nonfacial visual stimuli, whereas a growing proportion…

Notes that children are "wired" to learn, and cites research indicating the importance of talking to an infant for his or her neuron and subsequent cognitive development. Suggests reading aloud, providing positive feedback, responding verbally to the child's actions, and increasing vocabulary. (HTH)

A study investigated the construct validity of the Visual Similes Arousal II, an instrument designed to measure arousal as it relates to affective and cognitive stimuli. Principle-axis factor analyses with oblique rotations were used for 116 younger students (ages 8-9) and 108 older students (ages 10-11). Results confirmed construct validity.…

Investigated whether syntactic computation takes place in an ambiguous sentence fragment in Japanese and if and how information from constituents other than the verb is utilized. Experiments were conducted using automated, word-by-word visual presentations with a lexical decision task on an extrasentential target. (Author/VWL)

A follow-up study examined the effects of different tactile aids on tasks of visual speech reading in 14 adults with severe hearing impairments. Compared with speech reading alone, tactile aids impaired sentence-based speech reading at first, although performance improved with training. No effects of vibrotactile aids or training were obtained for…