Significant differences were found between younger and older children on most neuropsychological tests. Girls were found to be superior to boys in verbal reasoning, language skills, and serial perceptual matching skills, whereas boys were superior on tests of spatial memory and motor skills. (Author)

A study found that a particular study skill system (mapping or paraphrasing) did not benefit one kind of learner (field dependent or field independent) more than another. (MKM)

Delineates five developmental listening comprehension stages second language learners pass through: (1) streams of sound, with no comprehension; (2) word recognition within the stream; (3) phrase/formula recognition; (4) clause/sentence recognition; and (5) extended speech recognition, or general comprehension. The discussion illustrates the…

The most frequently noted difference in the abilities of tenth graders and college seniors to recall sentence connectives was the college students' ability to engage in free recall and rewriting, indicating that such a task would be a good predictor of mature use of transformational sentence connectives in the study of English. (JD)

Teachers tend to give directions that their pupils can follow correctly. Children are better able to process increasingly complex directions as they get older. (Authors/CJ)

This review analyzes research on the influence of perception on reading disabilities among adolescent and young adult populations. It addresses three primary areas associated with reading achievement: perceptual discrimination, memory and retrieval, and comprehension. Implications for reading instruction are drawn. (Author/SJL)

Presents evidence that the psychological principles that govern the perception of decision problems and evaluation of probabilities and outcomes produce predictable shifts of preference when the same problem is framed in different ways. (Author/SK)

Using attribution theory and social learning theory, a conceptual model explaining how attributional and efficacy questions influence family conflict attitudes and behaviors is presented. The effect of causal attributions on blaming behavior and generalizations is examined. More attention should be paid to individual cognitions in family conflict.…

Describes a study investigating the combined effect of certain variables on student achievement in classical mechanics. The purpose was to (1) describe preinstructional knowledge and skills; (2) correlate these variables with the student's success in learning classical mechanics; and (3) develop hypothesis about relationships between these…

There is a tendency for students studying a French lesson to lose the positive effects gained during the listening and speaking phase when they read the "Lecture" sections of their texts. A study of six beginning level French texts shows that the "Lecture" is difficult for students and not systematically graduated in difficulty. (PJM)

Given that a pupil's capacity to learn is based largely on his/her ability to handle language, the results of achievement tests within the immigrant communities have highlighted the culture-laden nature of these tests. They are unfair in assessing the immigrants' language and academic ability. (PJM)

This discussion centers around the dangers in making too precise a particular concept in educational psychology that distinguishes between two types of understanding, instrumental and relational. (MP)

Comments on the study reported by Lawson, Karplus, and Adi (1978) which indicated that formal schemata and propositional logic are not part of the same structured unity of mental operations proposed by Piaget. (HM)

A 22-item question preference test was developed and administered to different age and ability groups in an attempt to identify "describer/explainer" question preferences. All groups preferred "explainer" questions, but there was a highly significant difference between low and high ability groups. Implications for the classroom are considered.…

Piaget's formal operational stage is related to the teaching of science by focusing on the development of paper and pencil tests for determining students' cognitive level of development and on procedures for helping concrete operational students improve achievement and become more formal in their thinking. (JMF)