Compared the gestures of typical human infants, children with autism, chimpanzees, and human-raised chimpanzees. Typical infants differed from the other groups in their use of: triadic gestures directing another's attention to an outside entity; declarative gestures; and imitation in acquiring some gestures. These differences derive from an…

Ten infants aged 8-12 months were studied to determine whether they would spontaneously imitate the average fundamental frequency or fundamental frequency contour of their speaking partners. Acoustic analyses failed to reveal any tendency by the infants to adjust vocal pitch, amplitude, or duration in home or laboratory settings. (Author/JDD)

The effects of expressive modeling experiences on the observational learning of generative language by children with severe mental retardation was investigated. All six children (aged six-nine) demonstrated observational learning of responses modeled by their peers. Organizing the modeling experiences according to matrix-training principles…

Describes research on young children's long-term memory under 2 conditions of acquisition: direct imitation followed by a 10-minute delay, or deferred imitation. Children were able to encode and retain as much from visual pickup of modeled acts as from feedback obtained through imitation. (Author/GH)

Comparison of 32 children (ages 5-7) with specific language impairments (SLI) and normally developing children matched for either age or language development found that the SLI children, unlike either control group, performed significantly better for morpheme production tasks in an imitation instruction condition than in a modeling condition.…

Evaluates the effectiveness of the progressive time delay procedure in art activities involving disabled and nondisabled preschoolers, whereby teachers progressively delay corrective assistance to disabled pupils attempting to imitate their peers. Found that using the progressive time delay procedure produced high levels of imitation in a nearly…

Investigates the effectiveness of self-modeling as a treatment to increase on-task behavior. Results indicate immediate, substantial, and durable changes in students' on-task behavior that generalizes across academic settings. At 6- and 8-week follow-up, the students' percentages of on-task behavior were essentially indistinguishable from their…

The purpose of this study was to modify the affective behavior of three preschoolers with autism in home settings and in the context of play activities, and to compare the effects of video modeling to the effects of "in-vivo" modeling in teaching these children contextually appropriate affective responses. A multiple-baseline design across…

This article proposes the Teacher Observation Programme for in-service teacher trainees. The program is reflective, collaborative, and builds confidence. It enables teachers to grow in their ability to self-evaluate. Trainees who have made decisions about their own observation, who have created and used their own observational tools, and who have…

Research shows that many students hold misconceptions related to plant functions (Hershey 2004). Some of these students will become teachers with little content understanding to identify their students' misconceptions about plants (Amir and Tamir 1994). The literature on teaching about plants doesn't help; it contains frequent errors,…

Jo-Anne Kerr relies on teacher-research practices to discover insights for making her classes more beneficial to "resistant learners." She shares her experience of observing two previously struggling male vocational-technical students, conducting informal and formal interviews with them throughout the year, and collecting data from their…

Boys and girls were exposed to a same- or opposite-sex televised peer model who played with a sex-inappropriate toy for the children. The model was then administered positive or negative reinforcement or no consequences by a female adult figure. Girls played with the sex-inappropriate toy more than boys following exposure, particularly when the…

The effects of the affective relationship between a model and observer and locus of control on imitative behavior were investigated using a simple imitative task with 28 boys as subjects. Results indicated the need to control the affective relationship between model and observer and support Bandura's position that imitative behavior is primarily…

The assumption that after the appropriate educational event, patient care audits (PCA) can demonstrate improvement in physician performance was examined in a study that reaffirmed earlier findings that the apparent improvement in doctor performance after a PCA may be improvement that was already occurring, with no greater improvement occurring…

A field trip to a local bank is a practical way to make economics more relevant to students. For journal availability see SO 504 303. (DE)