Thirty-four children (6 to 7 and 10 to 11 years old) diagnosed as brain injured and enrolled in a school for brain injured children and 40 children in regular classes took part in a study of variability and instability in perceptual and reading functions. (Author/SBH)

The literature concerning medication effects on cognitive functioning and test results is reviewed, along with guidelines for treatment-team members to help assure proper prescribing and monitoring of medication to achieve maximum therapeutic effect with minimal side effects. (Author/DLS)

Educators can either decry the changing brain and the media-saturated culture or adapt schools to accommodate these changes. New cognitive research affirms some time-honored practices, but is opening up new possibilities concerning the development of young brains; the role of emotions in learning; and the importance of connections to past…

Ten subjects with right-brain lesions were compared with 10 healthy subjects on psychomotor tasks (pursuit tracking). The injured group was able to learn the task but were slower at correcting unanticipated errors and did not respond to changes in the probable direction of movement. (SK)

Measures unilateral, tachistoscopic naming reaction times of normal and reading disordered children to objects representing two levels of picture vocabulary age. Suggests parallel, central picture naming operations for each group, with reading disordered children evidencing longer naming reaction times to each stimulus level. Suggests that a group…

Downsizing or brain drain may damage the learning capacity of organizations. A case study of an aerospace manufacturing firm shows that appropriate strategies to analyze the impact on formal and informal learning networks may help manage or minimize the damage. (Contains 55 references.) (SK)

States that hemispheric preference literature reveals mostly marginally significant data--different ways of probing human thought processing exist and various mistakes can sometimes account for borderline data. Elaborates the Sonnier Model of Hemispheric Preferences (SMHP) which may provide clarification and more fruitful research questions and…

This literature review was conducted to evaluate the developmental perspective on neurocognitive recovery/development following a child's traumatic brain injury. Overall, the described findings support a developmental view and suggest that predictions of prognosis should be based on the child's remaining ability to learn. (Contains 50 references.)…

Proposes that illiteracy due to social reasons is a good source of information to investigate the adaptation mechanisms to the formal knowledge of written language. Compares illiterate subjects and their controls in several experimental conditions. Concludes that schooling, and in particular the knowledge of orthography, introduces in the brain…

This article provides an overview of decision-making literature, describes individual and organizational decision stages, and reviews selected idiographic influences on decision-making. Also presented is a model for predicting and explaining variations in decision outcomes. These outcomes include affective, cognitive, and behavioral conditions.…

Observed 4-year-olds during interaction tasks, and 2-weeks later recorded brain wave functions while subject attended to a visual stimulus. Found that children who displayed social competence exhibited greater relative left frontal activation than children displaying social withdrawal during the play session, who exhibited greater relative right…

New evidence on brain functions demonstrates the necessity of connections between knowing and doing, school and life, knowledge and application, and content and context. Contextual teaching and learning principles can better harness the power of the thinking brain. (SK)

Responds to L. Eubank and K. R. Gregg article (this issue), suggesting they have misinterpreted and misrepresented claims made by B. Jacobs and J. Schumann. Claims discussed include the micro- and macro-organization of neurobiology and language, the Explananda, Jacobs and Schumann's acquisition mechanism, and reductionism. The single acquisition…

Responds to L. Eubank and K. R. Gregg article (this issue), negating their rejection of neurobiological accounts of language acquisition because they are not based on Government and Binding theory and addressing their ideas on the explanatory power of associative learning. A discourse between neurobiology and linguistics is possible only if…

Describes an assignment that begins with a short questionnaire to determine students' dominant mode of thinking. Discusses differences between left- and right-mode thinking patterns and how communication is affected by domination of either mode. (SR)