Current test anxiety theory suggests that achievement differences between high and low anxious students are due to differences in attention. In an attempt to investigate the interaction between various components of test anxiety, stress, and tasks measuring attentional flexibility, undergraduate students (N=45) completed Sarason's Test Anxiety…

The purpose of this article is to report how a guidance consultant was able to model the use of the encouragement process plus immediate corrective feedback to help one boy improve his arithmetic achievement and attending behavior in the classroom. (Author)

Children of ages 5 and 8 years were given one of three learning tasks: (a) a component selection problem, in which two stimulus components were redundant and (b) two incidental learning tasks, in which one component of the stimuli was task-relevant and the other was incidental. A posttest, measuring the children's recall for information about each…

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of conditioning subjects to believe expectancy statements, and to demonstrate the effects of the conditioning on persistence and persistence of attention. A review of related research on suggestion, on cognitive dissonance, and on conditioning is included. The subjects for the experiment…

The relation of amount of adult-directed activity to children's social, play, and task behaviors was examined for 141 children in 13 Head Start classes. (JMB)

Seven techniques for measuring information processing in infants are proposed to aid in the early identification of mental retardation. The techniques are based on conditioning, attentional, and manual exploration paradigms and could be combined into an assessment battery more valid than current infant IQ tests in predicting later disability.…

Based on three areas of research (memory, selective attention, and metacognition), three strategy training interventions with learning disabled children are described: Lloyd's academic strategy training, Torgeson's strategy training, and Deshler's learning strategies model. Individual approaches may be appropriate only for selected subgroups of…

Eighteen moderately mentally retarded adults, 20 nonretarded elementary age children, and 20 nonretarded adults were exposed to three conditions of an auditory detection task (location, meaning, and a combination of both). Developmentally immature subjects (retarded adults and nonretarded children) demonstrated less efficient attentional capacity.…

In response to a previous critique of her paper on self-monitoring of attention with learning disabled students, the author stresses the importance of effective curricula as a prerequisite to instruction in metacognitive strategies so that students know what to pay attention to. (Author/DB)

The computerization of attention tasks has allowed clinicians to incorporate objective data into evaluations of attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity. The Gordon Diagnostic System (GDS) is described and case histories are presented which illustrate the contribution of GDS data to evaluation and treatment monitoring. (DB)

Fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students (N=12) at risk for school maladjustment and academic failure, were taught a self-recording procedure to monitor their attention to task during independent seatwork. Evaluation indicated the efficacy of self monitoring for improving on-task performance in regular classroom settings. (Author/DB)

Observation of eight-month-olds (N=7) during isolated free play session with three toys revealed that significantly more vocalizations were present during transition periods where changes from locus of attention and changes in facial expression occurred. (Author/CB)

Thirty learning disabled elementary grade students were given the Flowers Auditory Test of Selective Attention and the Goldman Fristoe Woodcock Auditory Selective Attention Test. Weak but significant correlations between the two tests of auditory selective attention suggested that the tests do not measure exactly the same constructs. (Author/DB)