This annual report provides information for the 2013-14 school year on grade-level retention in the Texas public school system. Data on retention are provided by student characteristics, including grade level; race/ethnicity; gender; degree of English proficiency; and economic, at-risk, immigrant, migrant, and overage statuses. Data also are…

This annual report provides information for the 2014-15 school year on grade-level retention in the Texas public school system. Data on retention are provided by student characteristics, including grade level; race/ethnicity; gender; degree of English proficiency; and economic, at-risk, immigrant, migrant, and overage statuses. Data also are…

The aim of this study is to determine the test-retest reproducibility of the seven-item Short-Form Berg Balance Scale (SFBBS) and the five-item Short-Form Postural Assessment Scale for Stroke Patients (SFPASS) in individuals with chronic stroke. Fifty-two chronic stroke patients from two rehabilitation departments were included in the study. Both…

This study utilized a novel task design in an effort to identify the source of the second language processing advantage commonly reported in mixed language conditions, investigate switch cost asymmetry in non-balanced bilinguals, and identify task-related variables that potentially contribute to inconsistent results across studies with similar…

Reading fluency has been identified as one of the essential skills students must develop in order to learn to read. Fluency is also a critical factor in reading comprehension (National Reading Panel [NRP], 2000). Many students, however, lack the ability to read age-appropriate materials fluently, including students with emotional and behavioral…

We present a meta-analysis reviewing studies that have focused on the relationship between dyslexia and nonword repetition. The results show that children with dyslexia have poorer nonword repetition skills when compared to both chronological-age and reading-level controls. However, the severity of the nonword repetition problem varies…

This article reports on three research studies, all of which concern second language task performance. The first focuses on planning, and compares on-line and strategic planning as well as task repetition. The second study examines the role of familiarity on task performance, and compares this with conventional strategic planning. The third study…

Each year, Austin Independent School District Department of Research and Evaluation (DRE) staff develop a plan of work to describe the scope of work for the coming year. The plans that make up this document identify programs to be evaluated and services to be provided by DRE staff and provide the blueprints for evaluation that staff will follow…

School systems handle the challenges of diverse student populations in different ways. Some countries have non-selective and comprehensive school systems that seek to provide all students with similar opportunities, leaving it to individual schools and teachers to meet the particular needs of every student. Other countries group students, whether…

Articulatory kinematics were investigated using electromagnetic articulography (EMA) in four dysarthric speakers with Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA). Specifically, tongue-tip and tongue-back movements were recorded by the AG-200 EMA system during production of the consonants t and k as produced within a sentence utterance and during a rapid syllable…

Although aging causes relatively minor impairment in recognition memory for components, older adults' ability to remember associations between components is typically significantly compromised, relative to that of younger adults. This pattern could be associated with older adults' relatively intact familiarity, which helps preserve component…

Purpose: This study investigated the feasibility and efficacy of a working memory training program for improving memory and language skills in a sample of 9 children who are deaf (age 7-15 years) with cochlear implants (CIs). Method: All children completed the Cogmed Working Memory Training program on a home computer over a 5-week period.…

To examine the development of recognition memory in primary-school children, 36 healthy younger children (8-9 years old) and 36 healthy older children (11-12 years old) participated in an ERP study with an extended continuous face recognition task (Study 1). Each face of a series of 30 faces was shown randomly six times interspersed with…

Contextual cueing refers to the facilitated ability to locate a particular visual element in a scene due to prior exposure to the same scene. This facilitation is thought to reflect implicit learning, as it typically occurs without the observer's knowledge that scenes repeat. Unlike most other implicit learning effects, contextual cueing can be…

During memory encoding, increased hippocampal activity--thought to reflect the binding of different types of information into unique episodes--has been shown to correlate with subsequent recollection of those episodes. Repetition priming--thought to induce more efficient perceptual processing of stimuli--is normally associated with decreased…