Fifty-four elementary school children who had been identified as consistently inattentive to classroom activities were involved in a four-week treatment program. Attention was assessed using a time-sampling observational instrument developed for the study, based upon a previously-developed technique. Subjects were assigned randomly to either an…

This brief paper summarizes warning signs of learning disabilities in preschool children, elementary school children, and secondary school children. It notes that learning disabilities are presumed to arise from dysfunctions in the brain resulting in significant difficulties in perceiving information, processing and/or remembering information,…

Reviews research on the effects of Montessori schooling on children. Results are presented in six sections: (1) general verbal intelligence; (2) perceptual, motor, and performance IQ development; (3) academic achievement and school readiness; (4) attention, concentration, resistance to distraction, and impulsiveness; (5) Piagetian conceptual…

Children viewed a television segment that included humorous or nonhumorous inserts paced either at slow or fast intervals, or an uninterrupted program. Both humorous conditions produced information acquisition results that were superior to any of the no-humor situations. Visual attention and reaction to the humor were noted. (Author/GDC)

Elementary and secondary school teachers were trained to generate effective instructional systems which provided for a greater number of individual students. There was a significant decrease in both the number of students exhibiting inattention and in the mean amount of inattention displayed by students of experimental teachers. (Author/GDC)

Investigates age differences in selective attention in a coded visual search task where subjects were given different types of information about target location before trial onset. (Author/SS)

Longitudinal videotape recordings of six young children with autism and six age- and language-matched children with Down syndrome in structured play with their mothers were analyzed. Findings of reduced expression of positive affect by autistic subjects suggest that their known deficits in attention and affective responsiveness persisted even in…

Assessed effects of sleep restriction and extension on 9- to 12-year-olds' neurobehavioral functioning. Found that modest sleep restriction led to improved sleep quality but to reduced reported alertness. Children who extended sleep improved significantly from baseline their performance on the digit forward memory test and reaction time on the…

Assessed the role of attention processes as mediators between family environment and school readiness, analyzing data from 1,002 children and their families participating in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. Found that sustained attention partially accounted for the link between family environment and achievement and language outcomes.…

Describes guidelines that can be used by teachers to promote student learning. Suggests that realistic expectations, the use of activities, demonstrations, labs, a variety of teaching methods, and good discipline are important to higher-level motivation of lower-level students. Discusses testing of mildly handicapped children, and dealing with…

The effect of an imagery cue and an attention-directing strategy within the context of a microcomputer learning environment was studied using 180 Ohio State University freshmen. The environment provided both self-paced and externally paced instruction. It appears that the attention strategy and embedding of an imagery cue increased students'…

Describes a study that was conducted to determine how temporal sound affected students' attention to critical information from a computer interface. Design issues are addressed, including modality, verbal information, constructivism, authoring software, expressiveness, and gender; and results are discussed that indicate temporal sound may help…

Argues that the formal properties of language reflect the underlying mental processes that individuals deploy in problem-solving situations. This analysis of the linguistic features of "private writing" reveals that writers utilize their linguistic systems to organize and direct strategic mental processes. (69 references) (CK)

Twenty-six adolescents with educable mental retardation were identified as good or poor attenders based on teachers' ratings on an attention scale and were administered an auditory vigilance test and Posner's physical and name identity task. Although the vigilance task did not discriminate between groups, the more demanding Posner's task did.…

This study investigated the effects of prompting, or directing/controlling attention, during a reasoning task on the performance of 68 children with attention deficit disorders, learning disabilities, or no handicaps, in grades 1-12. All groups benefited from prompting, and prompting was related to a different set of cognitive processes in each…