Examines format effects on the comprehension of television news. Finds that comprehension of television news is enhanced by the use of film and by mixing up formats. Finds also that comprehension is lowest for "talking head" items in programs with unvaried format and best for film items in mixed format newscasts. (PRA)

Offers six techniques that offer guidance for instructing business communication students. Asserts that instructors can help students to listen better by incorporating these techniques/speaking practices into their daily instructional routines. (PRA)

Evaluation of the speech perception of eight children (ages four and five) with specific language impairments and documented morphological difficulties found these children to be especially weak in discriminating speech stimuli whose contrastive portions had shorter durations than the noncontrastive portions (typical of English grammatical…

The relation of compliance to comprehension in toddlers of 12-18 months was studied. Requests were made to children in naturalistic play situations, and children's responses were coded. Significant shifts in the categories of compliance-comprehension and noncompliance-noncomprehension were found. (BC)

Explored effects of speech type and esteem level on performance, physiological arousal level, and subsequent esteem in older adults (n=40). Results indicated that older adults performed difficult tasks better with clarified instructions given in attention-getting manner. Findings were contradictory to more intuitive accounts of child-directed…

Examines the pitfalls of grouping children by physical traits during classroom or extracurricular activities. Since such a practice helps to perpetuate ethnic and racial stereotypes, teachers should avoid arbitrary categorization and emphasize individual responsibility among their students. (MDM)

Thirty-seven college students watched slides of an older adult reading a reminiscence passage; 38 viewed a younger adult. Students listening to the older adult significantly underestimated the number of words used, rated their interest significantly lower, and correctly answered fewer questions about content. (SK)

Continues a line of research attempting to ascertain the focus of musicians' attention when listening to music, particularly whether musicians demonstrate consistent listening patterns across excerpts designed to be perceived as good and bad performances. Indicates that musician-listeners consistently discriminated between good and bad…

This study of the role of communicative context in the speech perception of 31 individuals with severe-to-profound hearing impairment who were wearing hearing aids found that when response was preceded by a question, comprehension of answers improved, and that time delay and the relatedness of the reply to the question interacted in degree of…

Investigates the similarities and differences in how listeners with different levels of education experience demonstrate perception of tempo modulation in music. Reports that level of education may affect how listeners demonstrate differences and that responses depended on the direction of tempo change. Notes importance of the music education of…

Considers what it means to listen in the context of teaching, and what it means to teach in the context of listening. Explores the character of listening as it is lived in teaching by drawing from stories told during conversations among three teachers about particular students (SG)

Reports an experiment in which two groups of English-as-a-Second-Language participants--native Mandarin listeners and a mixed group of speakers of other languages--used a 9-point scale ranging from "too slow" to "too fast" to assess the appropriateness of the speech rate of narratives read by native English speakers and…

When interviewing for a principal position, candidates should practice with friends and acquaintances, anticipate "sure thing" questions, listen and respond carefully, know something about the school and community, show passion and enthusiasm, and ask interviewers what the new principal ought to tackle first. (MLH)

Effective psychologists and school leaders know how to manage conversations to help clients or stakeholders move toward solutions. This article presents the assumptions of solution-focused brief therapy in a school leadership context. Key components are focusing on solutions, finding exceptions, identifying changes, starting small, listening to…

Background: The Neale Analysis of Reading Ability (NARA) (Neale, 1997) is widely used in education and research. It provides measures of reading accuracy (decoding) and comprehension, which are frequently interpreted separately. Aims: Three studies were conducted to investigate the degree to which the NARA measures could be separated. Samples:…