Background: We examined performance on a self-referenced memory (SRM) task for higher-functioning children with autism (HFA) and a matched comparison group. SRM performance was examined in relation to symptom severity and social cognitive tests of mentalizing. Method: Sixty-two children (31 HFA, 31 comparison; 8-16 years) completed a SRM task in…

The current study investigated the relevance of semantic processing and stimulus salience for memory performance in young ADHD patients and healthy control participants. 18 male ADHD patients and 15 healthy control children and adolescents participated in an ERP study during a visual memory paradigm with two different encoding tasks requiring…

How a person teaches grammar depends on what he or she believes it does. Some see grammar as a set of rules, inherited from wise forefathers. For them, teaching grammar means making students aware of, and then holding them to, these rules. Others see grammar as an expression of style, an invitation to the writer to explore how to create a…

Your students successfully completed a lab session, correctly filled in all of the worksheets, and collected the required data. Yet, as a science teacher, you still find yourself wondering--what did my students actually learn? And, can they apply that learning to what is going on in their everyday lives? The process of critical thinking and…

Plans give structure to behavior by specifying whether and when different tasks must be performed. However, the structure of behavior need not mirror the structure of the plan. To investigate this idea, the authors studied how plan information is retrieved in the context of a novel sequence-position cuing procedure, wherein subjects memorize two…

While it is true that every history is composed of facts, there is something more to history, something that makes it more than just the sum of its factual claims. That something is called narrative. A narrative is not simply a story (although it may be that). Rather, it is a structure for organizing factual claims. As many historians have noted,…

This article reports on an experiment comparing the effects of three discrete types of deviance from native language (L1) phonetics and phonology on verbal short-term memory performance. A nonword repetition task was used to measure the recall of four stimulus types: (a) high-probability L1-sounding nonwords, (b) low-probability L1-sounding…

The authors investigated the strategic component (i.e., elaboration and organization of episodic features) and the associative component (i.e., binding processes) of episodic memory and their interactions in 4 age groups (10-12, 13-15, 20-25, and 70-75 years of age). On the basis of behavioral and neural evidence, the authors hypothesized that the…

This study examined prospective teachers' (N=176) beliefs about the role that memorization and imaginative thinking play in K-12 schooling. Results indicate that the majority of prospective teachers (68.5%) believed there was a specific grade that teachers should place more emphasis on the memorization of correct answers rather than encourage…

Invention is a natural part of the human condition. It does not exist outside everyday activities, and it certainly does not come like a bolt out of the blue. The prepared mind, as always, is favored for success. Setting the stage for invention is as important as carrying it out. Good corporate leaders know this--as does any astute technology…

The term "conceptual understanding" has been used rather loosely over the years in educational practice, with a tendency to focus on a few aspects of an extremely complex phenomenon. In this first article of a two-part miniseries on conceptual understanding, we describe the nature of expert (versus novice) knowledge and show how the conceptual…

The performance of children (and sometimes adults) with visual impairments (VI) on a range of tasks that reflect learning, memory and mental imagery is considered in this article. Sometimes the evidence suggests that there are impairments in performance in comparison with typically developing children with vision, and sometimes some advantages…

Every few years in the United States, history teachers go through what some believe is an embarrassing national ritual. A representative group of students sit down to take a standardized U.S. history test, and the results show varied success. Sizable percentages of students score at or below a "basic" understanding of the country's history.…

Introduction: The cognitive processes that underpin successful mathematical processing in children have been well researched by experimental psychologists, but are not widely understood among teachers of primary mathematics. This is a shame, as an understanding of these cognitive processes could be highly useful to practitioners. This paper…

The purpose of this study was to determine the changes in the mathematics curriculum for grades 5-8 in the Republic of Serbia after the break-up of SFRY. In particular, the research sought to identify the changes in the mathematics curriculum in terms of curriculum content and learning objectives, textbooks, and high school entrance examination…