Executive function (EF) plays a foundational role in development. A brain-based model of EF development is probed for the experiences that strengthen EF in the dimensional change card sort task in which children sort cards by one rule and then are asked to switch to another. Three-year-olds perseverate on the first rule, failing the task, whereas…

We examined French-learning toddlers' sensitivity to Subject-Verb agreement with conjoined subjects. In French, a conjoined NP triggers plural agreement even when made up of individual singular NPs. Processing of this infrequent structure in the input (see Corpus Analyses) requires going beyond surface patterns of non-adjacent dependencies to…

A persistent problem in engineering-focused science instruction is the "design--science gap," whereby learners focus on building successful engineering products, instead of focusing on the relevant scientific principles. This research explores (a) whether integrating contrasting cases into engineering activities can impact how deeply…

This study set out to examine the range of legibility demonstrated by Western Australian students required to handwrite tasks of increasing intrinsic cognitive load. A representative sample of students in Years 1, 2 and 3 (N=437) was recruited for a cross sectional study and teachers administered handwriting tasks. Year 1 students were…

Cross-situational word learning (XSWL) tasks present multiple words and candidate referents within a learning trial such that word-referent pairings can be inferred only across trials. Adults encode fine phonological detail when two words and candidate referents are presented in each learning trial (2 × 2 scenario; Escudero, Mulak, & Vlach,…

Background: Analogical mapping is a domain-general cognitive process used notably in language development, and particularly in the abstraction of construction schemas. Children with developmental language disorders (DLD) display an impairment in linguistic productivity and creativity, which can be linked to a lack of generalization of construction…

This study examined facial expressions produced during a British Sign Language (BSL) narrative task (Herman et al., International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 49(3):343-353, 2014) by typically developing deaf children and deaf children with autism spectrum disorder. The children produced BSL versions of a video story in which…

The present study addresses the scope of the writing difficulties observed in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Patients with AD, patients with MCI and healthy controls performed a written picture-naming task and a direct copy transcoding task in which phonology-to-orthography (P-O) consistency was…

In this study we applied a discursive perspective of learning (Sfard, 2008) to a sequence of 21 geometry mini-lessons taught in a fourth grade classroom. From this perspective, learning is defined as changes in mathematical discourse. We first characterize and then compare discourse from the beginning and the end of the mini-lesson sequence. We…

A goal of introductory physics for life sciences (IPLS) curricula is to prepare students to effectively use physical models and quantitative reasoning in biological and medical settings. To assess whether this goal is being met, we conducted a longitudinal study of the impact of IPLS on student work in later biology and chemistry courses. We…

Mandarin speakers tend to adapt intervocalic nasals as either an onset of the following syllable (e.g. Bruno [right arrow] "bù.lu.nuò"), as a nasal geminate (e.g. Daniel [right arrow] "dan.ní.er"), or as one of the above forms (e.g. Tiffany [right arrow] "dì.fú.ní" or "dì.fen.ní"). Huang and Lin (2013, 2016)…

This study investigated the role of cross-linguistic similarity in the acquisition of Russian initial stop contrasts by Chinese learners, addressing two specific research questions: (1) How similar are Russian voiced stops to Mandarin stops for Chinese learners?; and (2) How can the speech learning model (SLM) be applied to account for the…

Building from the evidence-based learning progression in geometric reasoning from the RMFII project, this paper presents data from students' solutions to three problems in geometry and measurement situations to identify key components needed to nurture reasoning. To show emerging analytical reasoning students must coordinate multiple pieces of…

The acquisition of a new morphological rule can be influenced by numerous factors, including the type of feedback provided during learning. The present study aimed to test the effect of different feedback types on children's ability to learn and generalize an artificial morphological rule (AMR). Two groups of eight-year-olds learned to judge and…

This paper investigated how production task combined with teacher feedback (in the form of recasts) affects child second language development, and the effects of task complexity on their production performance. 92 child learners of English in three intact classes were assigned to three tasks of different complexity (simple, +complex, ++complex).…