This paper reviews 25 doctoral dissertations on second language acquisition (SLA), English language learning and teaching submitted in Poland in the years 2006-2010. The theses were selected for review on the basis of the recommendations of Ph.D. supervisors from leading Polish universities and they are divided into six groups: learner autonomy,…

Purpose: To investigate whether working memory capacity (WMC) modulates the effects of to-be-ignored speech on the memory of materials conveyed by to-be-attended speech. Method: Two tasks (reading span, Daneman & Carpenter, 1980; Ronnberg et al., 2008; and size-comparison span, Sorqvist, Ljungberg, & Ljung, 2010) were used to measure individual…

This study investigated individual differences in sixth-grade students (N = 181; 47% girls, ethnically diverse) use of friends as a coping resource when dealing with a social stressor with another peer at school. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothesized three factor structure of coping with friends: mastery, avoidance, and…

The study examined individual differences in code-switching to determine the relationship between code-switching frequency and performance in verbal and non-verbal task switching. Seventy-eight Cantonese-English bilinguals completed a semi-structured conversation to quantify natural code-switching, a verbal fluency task requiring language…

We analyzed several studies of non-verbal communication (prosody and facial expressions) completed in our lab and conducted a secondary analysis to compare performance on receptive vs. expressive tasks by adolescents with ASD and their typically developing peers. Results show a significant between-group difference for the aggregate score of…

The current study examined individual differences in children's phonological and visuospatial short-term memory as potential mediators of the relationship among attention problems and near- and long-term scholastic achievement. Nested structural equation models revealed that teacher-reported attention problems were associated negatively with…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there was a significant difference between the perceived dispositions in pre-service teachers in urban settings versus non-urban settings. It was also the intent of this study to describe the change in perceived dispositions throughout pre-service teachers' internship experiences. Graduate…

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of several specific neurocognitive functions in developmental dyslexia (DD). The performances of 60 dyslexic children and 65 age-matched normally reading children were compared on tests of phonological abilities, visual processing, selective and sustained attention, implicit learning, and executive…

Prior neuroimaging work on visual perceptual expertise has focused on changes in the visual system, ignoring possible effects of acquiring expert visual skills in nonvisual areas. We investigated expertise for reading musical notation, a skill likely to be associated with multimodal abilities. We compared brain activity in music-reading experts…

In honor of Dr. Katherine Butler's extraordinary leadership of "Topics in Language Disorders," this article takes up her 1982 challenge to reach toward greater understanding of individual differences in the use of oral and written language by children with language learning disability. The article focuses on 3 interconnected dimensions of learning…

Early leadership studies produced significant research findings that have helped differentiate between leader and follower personal attributes and their consequent behaviors (SEDL, 1992), but little attention was given to the follower's contribution to the leadership process. This study represents a continuation of research by Henderson, Antelo, &…

This study explored the differences between students who remained at one early college acceleration program and those who left. Students who left appeared to seek what they perceived as a greater academic challenge or more specialized academic majors than were provided by the host college, a phenomenon that lends credence to the notion of positive…

Anecdotal evidence indicates that dyslexia is positively associated with superior visuospatial ability but empirical evidence is inconsistent. We explicitly tested the hypothesis that dyslexia is associated with visuospatial advantage in 20 dyslexic and 21 unimpaired adult readers using paper-and-pencil measures and tests of "everyday"…

Guided by research and theory on sibling similarities and differences, this study explored the nature and correlates of 2 processes of sibling influence--social learning and sibling differentiation--during adolescence. Participants included 2 adolescent-age siblings (M = 16.29 years for older siblings and M = 12.59 years for younger siblings,…

This article examines the relationship between idiosyncratic deals and organizational commitment. In particular, it examines how two individual differences which reflect self-worth (core self-evaluations and age) moderate that relationship. We predicted that employees with feelings of high self-worth will expect and will feel entitled to these…