Six functionally misarticulating preschool children were taught to produce [r] and one other sound absent from their phonetic inventory. For 86 percent of the 28 monitored sounds, generalization was consistent with pretreatment stimulability skills; production of stimulable sounds tended to improve regardless of whether treatment target was a…

Verbal-repetition and picture-pointing tasks were used in this study of semantic, lexical, and phonological factors of short-term memory in 6 children (ages 6-9) with specific language impairment (SLI) and 17 language-matched control subjects. Both group and individual analyses found no significant differences between the performance of the SLI…

Three experiments explored determinants of two-year olds' perseverative errors in a search task. Found that active search, even in the absence of observation, produced perseveration on post-switch trails, but mere observation did not. Results indicated that active search is required to elicit perseveration, which points to failures of response…

A review of research on the correlation between the intake of alcohol and creativity hypothesizes that modest alcohol consumption inhibits aspects of creativity based mainly on the secondary process (preparation, certain parts of illumination, and verification), and disinhibits those based mainly on the primary process (incubation, certain parts…

Three experiments assessed the claim that preschoolers override form class cues in the interest of honoring word- meaning assumptions when acquiring new labels. Results demonstrated that children respected the form class cues when these cues and word-meaning assumptions suggested conflicting interpretations. It was suggested that past findings…

Examined dual representation among toddlers and preschoolers in four studies. Found that dual representation was as difficult for 2.5-year-olds with a set of individual objects as it was with an integrated model. Decreasing the physical salience of a scale model made representation easier for 2.5-year-olds. Increasing the model's salience made…

To determine the effects on test performance and test validity of releasing essay topics before an examination, 300 prospective graduate students wrote essays on a released and an unreleased topic. Analyses did not reveal any statistically significant effect of topic release. (SLD)

Discussion of performance improvement in human performance technology focuses on the fact that not all favorite solutions may produce useful results. Highlights include a focus on meeting goals, not implementing solutions; three case studies that show popular misconceptions; determining instructional effectiveness; and how to check out popular…

Investigated strategies used by preschoolers to accomplish a repeatedly requested practical task. Participants satisfied customer requests for vegetables in a play store, with the number of moves and strategy type recorded and coded. Arithmetic pre- and posttests were also administered. Found that with repeated exposure, the children became…

Each Rasch (Masters) partial credit item can be expressed as the sum of independent Rasch binary items and Rasch (or Masters) indecomposable trinary items. If each trinary item is then expressed as the sum of two binary items, the binary items are positively dependent and cannot be both Rasch types. (SLD)

Undergraduate students in marketing classes were divided as follows: phase 1: 8 controls, 31 experimentals; phase 2: 81 controls, 53 experimentals. Experimental groups were tested in teams on experiential exercises throughout the semester; controls were tested individually. Experimental team scores were substantially higher than controls'…

Examined the relationship between 6- to 8-year olds' conceptual understanding of additive composition, commutativity, and associativity principles and addition problem-solving procedures. Results revealed that conceptual understanding was related to using order-indifferent, decomposition, and retrieval strategies and speed and accuracy in solving…

Compared the performance of children with and without autism in object-based positive and negative priming tasks within a visual search procedure. Found object-based positive and negative priming effects in both groups, with no group differences in the magnitude of the effects. Compared to typically developing children, children with autism were…

Three studies examined whether preschoolers' difficulties with deception and false belief arise from lack of inhibitory control rather than conceptual deficit. Found that 3-year olds deceived frequently under conditions requiring relatively low inhibitory control, but not high inhibitory control. Findings were not due to social intimidation, and…

Two studies examined whether preschool children would attend to object function over shape when labeling several familiar artifacts. Found that preschoolers attended to shape in all conditions, even when the artifact function was demonstrated. Their attention to shape was weaker when asked to "find another one" or to find another object…