A pioneer in the field tries to close the communications gap between biofeedback and education by showing how the technology can help students stay alert, feel better and explore inner space. (Editor)

A taxonomy of visual attention influencing devices for mentally retarded children is presented. Five studies involving educable mentally retarded students (primary-middle school) are discussed which identified motion, verbal pointers, arrows, and spatial location as the most effective attention influencing devices. Results had implications for…

Durations of children's alpha bursts and alpha blocking were measured by EEG with eyes closed or open in the dark and with feedback visual stimulation. Alpha durations decreased across conditions. Older children had longer no-alpha durations and showed greater responsiveness to conditions. The alpha-blocking response changes during childhood.…

Research studies are briefly reviewed to examine the hypothesis that delinquent adolescents may process information in a different manner than nondelinquents. Studies suggest delinquents: (1) have less control over information they attend to; (2) expose themselves to more stimulation; (3) process more slowly; and (4) selectively attend to…

Repeated observations of a colored form results in slower reaction-time responses to the familiarized stimulus than to a comparable novel stimulus due to alertness decrement and encoding facilitation. This two-factor theory of repetition was found to hold for words as well as for colors. (Author/BW)

Focusing techniques are procedures for capturing and holding the attention of the learners. A number of ideas are presented for focusing techniques for lecture, discussion, and demonstration. (MP)

Training over a 6-month period in which a moderately retarded 10-year-old was asked to direct his attention to simulus properties on a visual level resulted in significant improvement in concept development, social comprehension, and understanding of instructions. (CL)

Examined adult age differences in the effects of perceptual grouping on attentional performance. All three age groups were slowed by the presence of similar irrelevant information, but the elderly were slowed more than were the young adults. (Author)

As part of a search for a unified theory of attention, observers detected letters in streams of digits under conditions of divided or selective attention for a period of 10 hours. The practice effects on the detectability of targets and on the response criteria used by observers were evaluated. (Editor/RK)

A study of 22 preschool children with autism investigated touch therapy effects on problems commonly associated with autism including inattentiveness, touch aversion, and withdrawal. Orienting to irrelevant sounds and stereotypic behaviors decreased in both the touch therapy and the touch control group; however, orienting decreased more in the…

An individual with autism addresses the need for more research on sensory problems in autism. Difficulties that autistic individuals have with sensory processing, attention shifting, and sensory mixing between modalities are noted. Preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of sensory integration therapy is noted. (DB)

Showed English- and Japanese-speaking 3-year-olds novel objects named with either known nouns referring to items similar in shape or material and color, or novel nouns. Found that with known nouns, children attended to shape when names referred to a shape-organized category, but not when names referred to a category organized by other properties.…

The performance of 20 hyperactive and 26 comparison elementary-school boys on a spelling recognition task found that color facilitates attention to detail. Hyperactive children who practiced the task with all black letters first and color added later out-performed comparison children. (Author/JDD)