Three students (ages 12 and 13) with developmental disabilities and severe behavior disorders were taught independent purchasing skills. To bypass the need for money computation skills, discrimination between three stimulus classes of frequent purchases (vending machine snack, convenience store snack, lunch) were trained. Two students mastered the…

The effects on compliance of two types of differential negative reinforcement (DNR) were studied with a five-year-old girl with moderate mental retardation and a history of severe disruption. Escape from instructional trials was either contingent on a communicative behavior or compliance. Behaviors improved with both interventions, but compliance…

The Progressive Tactile Timetable was developed to enable pupils with visual impairments and severe learning difficulties to progress from use of concrete symbols (objects of reference) to the abstract tactile Moon code (a simplified raised line version of the Roman print alphabet). A case study illustrates its application with an adolescent with…

Fourteen emotionally disturbed junior high students and 16 regular education students were exposed to 2 experimental conditions with white and Baker-Miller pink visual stimuli. Analysis revealed significant differences on systolic and diastolic blood pressure but not on pulse, grip strength, nor the Digit-Symbol test of the Wechsler Adult…

Subscales of the Sheltered Care Environmental Scale dealing with conflict, cohesion, and independence were administered to 47 adults with moderate mental retardation on 4 occasions using either a verbal format or picture-cued format. Results indicated that the use of pictures enhanced the test-retest reliability of the instrument. (Author/JDD)

The effectiveness and efficiency of stimulus fading, stimulus shaping, time delay, and a feedback only procedure were compared in teaching three adults with moderate developmental delays sight words. Results showed no clear advantage for any one procedure. The benefit of conducting a preliminary evaluation of instructional procedures during…

This study of 78 prelingually deaf children (ages 6-13) who were educated orally found that children up to 9 years old seemed to process written words by means of visual codes. Older children tended to differentiate and preferred either a visual or speech-based strategy, with the latter associated with better reading performance. (Author/JDD)

This paper discusses audible traffic signals (ATS) and their use by visually impaired pedestrians in the United States and other countries. Areas of concern are noted, including the types of intersections at which ATS should be installed, the locations of poles and buttons for activating the system, and the specific type of device used.…

Explains how the ear and the brain work together to make music listening possible. Argues good hearing does not ensure skilled listening, stressing that listening is a mental process. Examines the aural process and properties of sound, and describes listening behaviors within the basic levels of auditory processing. Provides a guide for teaching…

Discusses research conducted to develop Japanese multimedia teaching materials for use on the Internet. The research verified the effects of different types of images used in multimedia teaching materials on the story understanding and reproduction ability of Japanese language learners based on a Japanese fairy tale. (Author/VWL)

A study compared continuous discourse tracking rates in eight children (ages 8-14) with hearing impairments and eight typical children using three competing noise conditions: classroom noise, videotaped classroom activity, and combined noise and visual activity. Statistical analyses showed no significant differences among tracking rates due to the…

Various methods for retrieving chemical structure information on the World Wide Web are discussed. Although graphical plug-in programs provide more search capabilities, users first have to obtain a copy of the programs. Tripos's WebSketch and ACD Interactive Lab adopt a different approach; using JAVA applets, users create and display a structure…

Compared the processing of rapid auditory stimuli on two-tone auditory discrimination tasks by 7- to 11-year-olds with learning impairments (LI) and those without learning impairments (non-LI). Found that LI children committed more errors, but the effects of timing were comparable. Obtained same results with a sample of good and poor readers. Task…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether individual differences observed in the grammatical morphology of children with specific language impairment (SLI) could be traced to another source, such as the use of weak syllables. Results show that imitations in prosody may restrict the degree of grammatical morpheme use by children with SLI.…

The word-learning ability of 12 school-age subjects with moderate or severe mental retardation was assessed. Subjects used the System for Augmenting Language with visual-graphic symbols for communication. Ability to fast map novel symbols was found to relate to symbol achievement status. Implications for vocabulary acquisition by youth with mental…