Development of cognitive processes and visual perception in 128 Down Syndrome (DS) children (ages 5 to 18) was compared to that of 162 nonhandicapped children (ages 3 to 8). Linear, rather than stepwise, relationships between performance and chronological age in the DS subjects and similar to normal visual perceptual development were found.…

Reviews Greenough, Black, and Wallace's (1987) conceptual framework for understanding the effects of early experience and sensitive periods on development, and illustrates the applicability of their model with recent data on the consequences for animals and human infants of the acquistion of self-produced locomotion. (BN)

Describes two experiments that assessed young children's understanding of the characteristic uncertainty in the physical nature of random phenomena as well as the unpredictability of outcomes. (HOD)

Reports on four experiments on pattern perception in four-month-old infants. The first experiment examined preference for patterns varying in structure; the second examined encoding patterns from different subset sizes; and the last two experiments examined changes in the size, position, and orientation of the habituation pattern. (HOD)

Observers aged six to 24 years estimated distances between elements in patterns illustrating Gestalt grouping principles of proximity, similarity, closure, and good continuation. Magnitude of distance distortions decreased significantly with age, suggesting that perceptual development includes improving ability to disregard Gestalt groupings when…

Describes a study of children's production of locative prepositions in order to test H. Clark's hypotheses regarding the acquisition of spatial terms. Subjects were required to describe the spatial arrangement of two balls arranged in each of three spatial dimensions. (SED)

The article provides an overview of central auditory processing (CAP) dysfunction and reviews research on approaches to improve perceptual skills; to provide discrimination training for communicative and reading disorders; to increase memory and analysis skills and dichotic listening; to provide speech-in-noise training; and to amplify speech as…

Reports a study in which the letters F, G, and K were presented in normal and backward versions, in varying angular orientations, in left and right visual fields. (Author/NH)

The study involving 33 children referred to school psychologists compared the Bender Gestalt and the Minnesota Perceptual Diagnostic Test-Revised (MPDT-R) in ability to predict intellectual and academic performance as measured by standardized tests. Factor analysis suggested that the MPDT-R provides unique information concerning…

Although research results generally fail to confirm a consistent relationship between reading performance and visual perception, auditory perception, or modality preference, clinical observations and teachers' opinions suggest the presence of such a relationship. The article reviews the research and suggests factors, including asking the wrong…

Researched the possibility that four- to six-year-old children are competent and systematic classifiers, at least making classifications by overall similarity. In three experiments, young children classified various sets of multidimensional stimuli that could be organized into catagories by overall similarity or by diminsional attributes. Children…

In this examination of young children's acquisition of geometric skills, spatial performances were conceptualized as specific combinations of actions applied within stimulus contexts. The relationships among eight action/context combinations were examined, and predicted patterns compared with observed ones. (Author/BW)

Demonstrates that both male and female neonates habituate and dishabituate to repeated and novel speech sounds. Results of a head-turning sound-localization task with 24 full-term neonates showed two basic processes: spatial orientation to sounds and response decrement to repeated speech sounds followed by response increment to novel speech…

Investigates the sensitivity of children aged 6 to 10 to stylistic properties of line drawings. Subjects were asked to judge the similarity of 12 drawings which varied along the dimensions of clarity, expressiveness, and line thickness. In contrast to previous research, the youngest children had the ability to make multidimensional…