How might a human communication system be bootstrapped in the absence of conventional language? We argue that motivated signs play an important role (i.e., signs that are linked to meaning by structural resemblance or by natural association). An experimental study is then reported in which participants try to communicate a range of pre-specified…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to examine if there was a principled way to understand the nature of rehabilitation in bilingual aphasia such that patterns of acquisition and generalization are predictable and logical. Method: Seventeen Spanish-English bilingual individuals with aphasia participated in the experiment. For each participant,…

Kane's paper "Validating the Interpretations and Uses of Test Scores" is the most complete and clearest discussion yet available of the argument-based approach to validation. At its most basic level, validation as formulated by Kane is fundamentally a simply-stated two-step enterprise: (1) specify the claims inherent in a particular interpretation…

This article describes an innovative approach to introducing translanguaging in an English for academic purposes (EAP) course at a young Sino-US joint-venture university in China. To promote the use of Chinese students' full linguistic and communicative repertoires in an English-medium-of-instruction university, I intentionally incorporated…

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of video modeling presented via smartboard for teaching children with autism about social response in the form of gestures, and verbal and facial expressions indicative of happiness and anger, and evaluate the method in terms of maintenance and generalization. The study used a multiple probe design…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an iPad® as a prompting device for teaching five daily living skills to three young adults with disabilities. Identified target tasks were (a) making spaghetti, (b) cleaning the dining room, (c) making macaroni and cheese, (d) cleaning the front porch, (e) cleaning the back porch, (f)…

Objectives: The aims of this study were to examine the effects of group cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) on improving anxiety symptoms and enhancing personal growth among adolescents at risk of developing anxiety disorders in school settings in Hong Kong. Method: A total of 26 participants received an eight-session CBT group and 20 received…

Two experiments investigated 3- to 5-year-olds' inductive generalizations about social categories. In Experiment 1, participants were shown pictures of children contrasting in appearance and either gender or classmate status, and were asked to generalize either biological properties or behaviors. Contrary to expectations, performance did not…

This study aimed to address two underexplored research questions regarding support for the separation between competence and affect self-perceptions due to differential relations to outcome criteria. First, it is tested whether higher relations between affect self-perceptions and effort than between competence self-perceptions and effort can also…

Past studies of the treatment of Milgram's obedience experiments in social psychology textbooks from the 1960s to the 1990s discovered an evolving "Milgram-friendly" coverage style (dealing with criticisms of his experiments either summarily, in a pro-Milgram manner, or not at all). We examined 10 current social textbooks to determine…

The past two decades have seen ample debate about processing instruction (PI) and its various components. In this article, we first describe what PI consists of and then address three questions: about the role of explicit information (EI) in PI, the difference between PI and teaching that incorporates production-based (PB) practice, and various…

Computers have become an important piece of technology in classrooms for implementing academic interventions. Often, students' responses to these interventions are used to help make important educational decisions. Therefore, it is important to consider the effect of these interventions across multiple contexts. For example, previous research has…

The report is the first systematic evaluation of the sentence equivalence item type introduced by the "GRE"® revised General Test. We adopt a validity framework to guide our investigation based on Kane's approach to validation whereby a hierarchy of inferences that should be documented to support score meaning and interpretation is…

Using generalizability (G-) theory and rater interviews as both quantitative and qualitative approaches, this study examined the impact of scoring methods (i.e., holistic versus analytic scoring) on the scoring variability and reliability of an EFL institutional writing assessment at a Turkish university. Ten raters were invited to rate 36…

Direct behavior rating (DBR) represents a feasible method for monitoring student behavior in the classroom; however, limited work to date has focused on the use of multi-item scales. The purposes of the study were to examine the (a) dependability of data obtained from a multi-item DBR designed to assess peer conflict and (b) treatment sensitivity…