During the first year of life, infants' face recognition abilities are subject to "perceptual narrowing", the end result of which is that observers lose the ability to distinguish previously discriminable faces (e.g. other-race faces) from one another. Perceptual narrowing has been reported for faces of different species and different races, in…

We conducted two experiments to address questions over whether 9-month-old infants believe that objects depicted in realistic photographs can be picked up. In Experiment 1, we presented 9-month-old infants with realistic color photographs of objects, colored outlines of objects, abstract colored "blobs," and blank pages. Infants most commonly…

The contribution of genetic factors to the memory is widely acknowledged. Research suggests that these factors include genes involved in the dopaminergic pathway, as well as the genes for brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR). The activity of the products of these genes is affected by single…

Talkers are known to compensate only partially for experimentally-induced changes to their auditory feedback. In a typical experiment, talkers might hear their F1 feedback shifted higher (so that /[epsilon]/ sounds like /[ash]/, for example), and compensate by lowering F1 in their subsequent speech by about a quarter of that distance. Here, we…

The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of self-awareness of real-world behavior on treatment outcome in adolescents with ASD. For this purpose we followed 28 adolescents with ASD during their first year of specialized treatment. Results showed that better self-awareness at start of treatment was related with an increase in…

Purpose: The effects of type of stimuli (i.e., nonspeech vs. speech), speech (i.e., natural vs. synthetic), gender of speaker and listener, speaker (i.e., self vs. other), and frequency alteration in self-produced speech on the late auditory cortical evoked potential were examined. Method: Young adult men (n = 15) and women (n = 15), all with…

The current study examined auditory processing deficits in dyslexia using a dichotic pitch stimulus and functional MRI. Cortical activation by the dichotic pitch task occurred in bilateral Heschl's gyri, right planum temporale, and right superior temporal sulcus. Adolescents with dyslexia, relative to age-matched controls, illustrated greater…

Science requires the acquisition and analysis of empirical (sense-derived) data. Given the same physical objects or phenomena, the sense organs of all people do not respond equally to these stimuli, nor do their minds interpret sensory signals identically. Therefore, teachers should develop lectures on human sensory systems that include some…

This study examined infants' early visual attention (at 1 month of age) and social engagement (4 months) as predictors of their later joint attention (12 and 18 months). The sample (n = 325), drawn from the Maternal Lifestyle Study, a longitudinal multicenter project conducted at 4 centers of the National Institute of Child Health and Human…

The authors assessed 4,865 middle and high school students for the ability to recognize and understand written and spoken morphologically simple words, morphologically complex words, and the syntactic structure of sentences and for the ability to answer questions about facts presented in a written passage and to make inferences based on those…

Children with developmental dyslexia (DD) may differ from typical readers in aspects other than reading. The notion of a general deficit in the ability to acquire and retain procedural ("how to") knowledge as long-term procedural memory has been proposed. Here, we compared the ability of elementary school children, with and without…

The use of data for educational decision making has never been more prevalent. However, teachers and school leaders need support in data use. Support can be provided by means of professional development in the form of "data teams". This study followed the functioning of 4 data teams over a period of 2 years, applying a qualitative case…

This study explores the processes occurring during technology workshops which built on interests and enhanced social engagement for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The workshops used a community based research design and focused on teaching a creative three-dimensional (3D) design programme (SketchUp™) to students with ASD. Seven…

This article describes an innovation in the teaching and learning of vocabulary in English as a Foreign Language classes. Whereas vocabulary coverage in classrooms and textbooks traditionally focuses on lists of target words in printed form, this article promotes the notion of "aural vocabulary" as an important part of…

Purpose: This study examined the potential roles of phonological sensitivity and processing speed in age-related declines of verbal working memory. Method: Twenty younger and 25 older adults with age-normal hearing participated. Two measures of verbal working memory were collected: digit span and serial recall of words. Processing speed was…