Development of interactive e-learning courseware has focused largely on the instructional design approach of multimedia applications and has brought about a substantial amount of success in producing engaging multimedia educational resources. In this article I explore how the multimedia instructional strategies and processes can be enhanced by…

The nature of predictive relations between early language and later cognitive function is a fundamental question in research on human cognition. In a longitudinal study assessing speed of language processing in infancy, Fernald, Perfors and Marchman (2006 ) found that reaction time at 25 months was strongly related to lexical and grammatical…

Objective: Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is now recognized as being the main cause of severe traumatic brain injury in infancy. However, our understanding of the impact of this type of abuse on child development remains sketchy. The main objective of the current study was therefore to shed light on the cognitive dysfunctions that are particular to…

Very few studies have directly compared reading acquisition across different orthographies. The authors examined the concurrent and longitudinal predictors of word decoding and reading fluency in children learning to read in an orthographically inconsistent language (English) and in an orthographically consistent language (Greek). One hundred ten…

In this paper, we present data from an evaluation of the educational impact of a school breakfast program implemented in rural schools in Peru. The results showed positive effects on school attendance and dropout rates, and a differential effect of the breakfast program on multiple-grade and full-grade schools. Particularly in multiple-grade…

Schools are a central interface between evolution and culture. They are the contexts in which children learn the evolutionarily novel abilities and knowledge needed to function as adults in modern societies. Evolutionary educational psychology is the study of how an evolved bias in children's learning and motivational systems influences their…

This paper extends and develops the metaphor of scaffolding to take account of the specific needs of pupils with an Acquired Brain Injury (ABI), drawing on observational evidence gathered for an empirical enquiry into the learning of pupils with ABI in mainstream classroom conditions. This is an area in which there are few published studies to…

As new technologies promise to be an enduring feature of the landscape of teachers' work, we consider how teachers implicitly bring stories forward into their classroom explorations with new media as a part of their "informal learning". By "stories" is meant specific classroom texts as well as preferred teacher practices with those texts. The…

Spearman's notions of mental energy and mental span presage modern conceptions of attentional resources and working memory as fundamental to intelligence. Viewing attention as the conative directing of the intellect, as "the application of intellectual energy," Spearman's quantitative law of mental span deals with limits on the…

The process of figuring things out probably is more intriguing than anything else. Metaphor and memory contribute to the figuring out which is done in two personal essays: "Think about It" by Frank Conroy and "The Hidden Teacher" by Loren Eiseley. Metaphor and memory close distances between text and reader, and evoke conditions…

In the face of discrimination and oppression, women have utilized self-protective strategies to maintain a positive sense of self. These strategies include attributing negative feedback, when possible, to discrimination rather than to the self. The present study expands understanding of the relationship between stigma and cognitive processes by…

This study examined 4- and 6-year-old children's understanding of the causal relation between the use of a rehearsal strategy and increased recall. In Session 1, children were given two study-recall trials and, on the second trial, were asked to describe their study behavior. In Session 2, children viewed videotaped models and made judgments…

The current uniform content of college reading programs can be expanded to include insights from other disciplines, specifically those areas of instruction which pertain to the neuropsychological mechanisms governing behavior, especially language behavior. There are several reasons for expanding the boundaries of college reading programs to…

In two experiments, the ability of children younger than 20 months to engage in delayed ordered recall was investigated. In the first experiment, 13- and 16-month-old children were presented with 2-step event sequences and tested for recall, first, immediately following the event and second, after a one-week delay. Sequences were novel-causal,…

This study examined memory representation as it is exhibited in young children's formation of facial prototypes. In the first part of the study, researchers constructed images of faces using an Identikit that provided the features of hair, eyes, mouth, nose, and chin. Images were varied systematically. A series of these images, called exemplar…