Six experiments measured preschoolers' ability to remember the affective reactions of characters in television shows. In two experiments, less than 1 percent of characters' reactions were recalled. In three experiments, children accurately recognized labels for reactions immediately after their portrayal but showed reductions in recognition memory…

Investigated the relationships among individual differences in reading ability, phonological awareness, and short-term memory. Also examined the mechanisms responsible for differences in short-term memory skills between good and poor readers. Found that reading differences were associated with verbal short-term memory differences. (TM)

Investigated the mechanisms responsible for short-term memory span and its development by examining the relationship between memory span and speech rate for words and nonwords in 2 groups of children, ages 5 to 6 and 9 to 11. Both age groups showed evidence of a relationship between speech rate and memory span. (MDM)

Recently, researchers have suggested that deficits in working memory capacity contribute to language-processing difficulties observed in individuals with aphasia (e.g., I. Caspari, S. Parkinson, L. LaPointe, & R. Katz, 1998; R. A. Downey et al., 2004; N. Friedmann & A. Gvion, 2003; H. H. Wright, M. Newhoff, R. Downey, & S. Austermann, 2003). A…

Objective: Congenital deafness provides the opportunity to study how atypical sensory and language experiences affect different aspects of information processing, e.g., time perception. Methods: Using two methods of temporal estimation, reproduction (Exp. 1) and production (Exp. 2), the effect of deafness on duration judgment was investigated…

The sensitivity of the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT) to working memory deficits may be enhanced by examining "dyads" (i.e., correct responses immediately preceded by a correct response) as a complement to the traditional total correct summary score. In a sample of 397 mostly African American (79%) healthy adults, total dyad…

We report a new method for calibrating differences in perceptual salience across feature dimensions, in infants. The problem of inter-dimensional salience arises in many areas of infant studies, but a general method for addressing the problem has not previously been described. Our method is based on a preferential looking paradigm, adapted to…

Motor skill learning is a dynamic process that continues covertly after training has ended and eventually leads to delayed increments in performance. Current theories suggest that this off-line improvement takes time and appears only after several hours. Here we show an early transient and short-lived boost in performance, emerging as early as…

Research findings concerning working memory impairment of children with learning disabilities, poor readers, and individuals with severe learning difficulties are examined within the framework of working memory. Results from developmental and experimental studies indicate a close link between the function of working memory and performance on…

The conceptual level, working memory capacity and domain-specific skills of two girls (aged 7 and 11 years old) and two boys (aged 9 and 10 years old) who displayed exceptional intellectual performance were investigated from Case's neo-Piagetian theoretical perspective. Five measures of conceptual level and two measures of working memory capacity…

Background: Children who meet language test criteria for specific language impairment (SLI) are not necessarily the same as those who are referred to a speech and language therapist. Aims: To consider how far this discrepancy reflects insensitivity of traditional language tests to clinically important features of language impairment. Methods &…

After hemispherectomy (removal or disconnection of an entire cerebral hemisphere) in childhood for treatment of intractable epilepsy, gross speech and language functions are often rescued. Whether more complex functions, such as syntactic processing, are selectively impaired, remains controversial. Here we present a cross-sectional study of…

Background: The object of this study was to analyze the executive functioning of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or reading disability (RD) independent of their non-executive deficits. Methods: Three carefully diagnosed groups of children, aged between 7 and 12 years (35 ADHD, 22 RD and 30 typically developing…

This article first examines recent theoretical and empirical research on reading development and instruction in English-speaking countries. Then, a study is described that examines the effects of a synthetic phonics-emphasis Direct Instruction remedial reading program on the phonological processes of students, with teacher-identified serious…

Cognitive performance is affected by an individual's characteristics and the environment, as well as by the nature of the task and the amount of practice at it. Mental performance tests range in complexity and include subjective estimates of mood, simple objective tests (reaction time), and measures of complex performance that require decisions to…