The Learning and Work Institute has been undertaking the Adult Participation in Learning Survey on an almost annual basis for over 20 years. The survey provides a unique overview of the level of participation in learning by adults, with a detailed breakdown of who participates and who does not. The survey deliberately adopts a broad definition of…

Purpose: A frequent complaint by older adults is difficulty communicating in challenging acoustic environments. The purpose of this work was to review and summarize information about how speech perception in complex listening situations changes across the adult age range. Method: This article provides a review of age-related changes in speech…

More than 10 million U.S. workers with college degrees, or one in six, are immigrants. While many have found jobs that make full use of their education and skills, nearly a quarter are underemployed, that is, they are either working in jobs that require no more than a high school diploma or are out of work. Tackling immigrants' skill…

Purpose: Velopharyngeal (VP) ratios are commonly used to study normal VP anatomy and normal VP function. An effective VP (EVP) ratio may be a more appropriate indicator of normal parameters for speech. The aims of this study are to examine if the VP ratio is preserved across the age span or if it varies with changes in the VP portal and to analyze…

Background: Adults with intellectual disability are often disengaged in disability services. While Active Support has found efficacy in residential settings, less is known in day services. This study examines the impact of Active Support in day services for adults with intellectual disability in Singapore, particularly on engagement and behaviours…

Background: Research suggests there is insufficient good quality information regarding the effectiveness of health education aimed at adults with intellectual disabilities. By analysing the literature, this review aimed to identify what constituted effectiveness in this context. Method: Relevant evaluations were extracted from bibliographic…

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience a variety of symptoms sometimes including atypicalities in language use. The study explored differences in semantic network organisation of adults with ASD without intellectual impairment. We assessed clusters and switches in verbal fluency tasks ('animals', 'human feature', 'verbs',…

Multifocal attention is the ability to simultaneously attend to multiple objects, and is critical for typical functioning. Although adults are able to use multifocal attention, little is known about the development of this ability. In two experiments, we investigated multifocal attention in 6-8-year-old children and adults using a child-friendly,…

Purpose: To better define the contributions of somatosensory and auditory feedback in vocal motor control, a laryngeal perturbation experiment was conducted with and without masking of auditory feedback. Method: Eighteen native speakers of English produced a sustained vowel while their larynx was physically and externally displaced on a subset of…

Many autistic people are motivated to have friends, relationships and close family bonds, despite the clinical characterisation of autism as a condition negatively affecting social interaction. Many first-hand accounts of autistic people describe feelings of comfort and ease specifically with other autistic people. This qualitative research…

Introduction: There is evidence of high rates of psychopathological disorders such as anxiety or depression in adults with Down syndrome. Additionally, difficulties in executive functions and emotion regulation play an essential role in adaptive functioning of people with Down syndrome. Method: We used different questionnaires with a sample of 42…

Intervening on causal systems can illuminate their underlying structures. Past work has shown that, relative to adults, young children often make intervention decisions that appear to confirm a single hypothesis rather than those that optimally discriminate alternative hypotheses. Here, we investigated how the ability to make informative causal…

Purpose: Low-frequency detection thresholds in quiet vary across transducers. This experiment tested the hypothesis that transducer effects are larger in young children than adults, due to higher levels of self-generated noise in children. Method: Listeners were normal-hearing 4.6- to 11.7-year-olds and adults. Warble-tone detection was measured…

Purpose: To assess changes in criterion validity when modifying cut-points for use in different epoch lengths. Method: Simulated free-living data came from 42 adolescents (2-hr each) and 29 adults (6-hr each) wearing a hip-worn accelerometer and portable indirect calorimeter (Cosmed K4b[superscript 2]). K4b[superscript 2] data were classified as…

In evaluative conditioning, if one shape (conditional stimulus [CS]; CSp) is paired with pleasant unconditional stimulus (US) images and another (CSu) is paired with unpleasant US images differential CS valence and US expectancy develops, such that participants evaluate the CSp as more pleasant and more predictive of pleasant images than the CSu.…