Formal algebras are among the most powerful and general mechanisms for expressing quantitative relational statements; yet, even university engineering students, who are relatively proficient with algebraic manipulation, struggle with and often fail to correctly deploy basic aspects of algebraic notation (Clement, 1982). In the cognitive tradition,…

The central dogma of molecular biology, a model that has remained intact for decades, describes the transfer of genetic information from DNA to protein though an RNA intermediate. While recent work has illustrated many exceptions to the central dogma, it is still a common model used to describe and study the relationship between genes and protein…

In a recent study we (Greaney & Arrow, 2009) undertook an analysis of the types of spelling errors that students had made during a National Education Monitoring Project writing task (Crooks, Flockton & White, 2007). We discussed several issues related to spelling, including the value of analysing students' error-response patterns as a way…

The goal of this study was to determine the mathematics achievement level in basic numeracy and algebra concepts of students in a two-year program in a technical vocational school of higher education and determine the errors that they make in these topics. The researcher developed a diagnostic mathematics achievement test related to numeracy and…

Numerous studies, examining the acquisition of non-referential it in [-pro-drop] English by learners of [+pro-drop] languages, have revealed that their participants omit non-referential subjects in English if their L1 allows null-subject position. However, due to the specificity of their focus, these studies have not considered other difficulties…

In native speakers of gender-marking languages, mechanisms of gender production appear to be affected by the morphophonological cues to gender present in the noun phrase. This influence is manifested in higher levels of production accuracy when more transparent cues to gender are present in comparison to when they are not. The goal of the present…

Existing studies on plural acquisition in German have relied on small samples and thus hardly deliver generalizable and differentiated results. Here, overgeneralizations of certain plural allomorphs and other tendencies in the acquisition of German plural markers are described on the basis of test data from 7,394 3- to 5-year-old monolingual…

Acquisition of English grammatical morphology was examined in five internationally adopted (IA) children from China (aged 0;10-1;1 at adoption) during the first three years' exposure to English to determine whether acquisition patterns were characteristic of child second language (L2) learners or monolingual first language (L1) learners. Results…

Purpose: To determine if speech error patterns in preschoolers with speech sound disorders (SSDs) predict articulation and phonological awareness (PA) outcomes almost 4 years later. Method: Twenty-five children with histories of preschool SSDs (and normal receptive language) were tested at an average age of 4;6 (years;months) and were followed up…

The use of augmentative and alternative communication systems based on graphic symbols requires children to learn to combine symbols to convey utterances. The current study investigated how children without disabilities aged 4 to 6 years (n = 74) performed on a simple sentence (subject-verb and subject-verb-object) transposition task (i.e., spoken…

This study examined how children and adolescents with Williams syndrome (WS; ages 8 years, 0 months [8;0]-14;5) used referential devices (determiners and pronouns), tense, and connectives to create cohesion in oral narratives based on a storybook compared to typically developing mentally and chronologically age-matched children. WS children used…

This study focuses on third grade pupils' (9 to 10 years old) ability to predict their performance in a given task and on the correspondence between the accuracy and adequacy of the predictions on the one hand, and the academic achievement on the other. The study involved 713 pupils from 29 Estonian schools. The pupils' performance predictions…

Background: The more a novel word conforms to the phonotactics of the language, the more wordlike it is and the easier it is to learn. It is unknown to what extent children with hearing loss (CHL) take advantage of phonotactic cues to support word learning. Aims: This study investigated whether CHL had similar sensitivities to wordlikeness during…

The aim of this study is to investigate the views of pre-service mathematics teachers taking compulsory Physics-I (mechanics) and Physics-II (electricity) about the mistakes they encountered in the textbooks which they benefited from and the predictions of instructors teaching physics courses about these views. A total of 75 preservice teachers,…

This study investigated the development of tense markers (e.g., past tense -ed) in children with cochlear implants (CIs) over a 3-year span. Nine children who received CIs before 30 months of age participated in this study at three, four, and five years postimplantation. Nine typical 3-, 4-, and 5-year- olds served as control groups. All children…