Reading success is closely related to paradigmatic and syntagmatic language responses. It is believed that a child who makes paradigmatic associations communicates and thinks in the language of the teacher while a child who makes syntagmatic responses is hampered in the learning situation. To determine how good (normal) and poor (retarded) readers…

Analyzes characteristics of Spanish language news broadcasts and discusses their peculiarities and discourse structure. A newscast that can be used in the classroom to improve students' listening comprehension is also outlined. (LMO)

More than 1,500 high school foreign language students were tested for comprehension of authentic texts. First- through fifth-year French, German, and Spanish students read texts of the types mentioned in the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines at the intermediate and intermediate high levels. All students captured some meaning from each of the texts.…

Describes how a public service company developed a four-day course designed to evaluate trainees' learning ability and upgrade their study skills. Examines the structured group pretest of trainees' entry study skills, the benefits of being a goal-oriented trainee, the PREP (preview, read, examine, prompt) Study System, memory recall, and test…

This study investigated the relationship between measures of speed of cognitive information processing and intelligence test scores. Cognitive processing measures were significantly related to IQ scores. Reaction time tests measure cognitive operations basic to intelligence, and individual differences in intelligence are partly due to variability…

Describes study of children in grades one, three, and five that examined their active processing and short term memory (STM) of color, contour, and interior pattern of shapes found in computer digitized pictures. Age-related differences are examined, and the role of processing visual information in the learning process is discussed. (12…

Examined age- and schooling-related influences on memory and phonological segmentation skills of 19 children who missed and made the school-entry cutoff date in a given year. Tested recall ability, short term memory strategies, and phonological awareness. Found that growth of memory skills and strategies, particularly short term, is primarily a…

The general intelligence factor (g) was investigated using 170 university students across three batteries of ability measures: (1) a short-term memory battery; (2) the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery; and (3) a reaction time battery. Results support the notion of g and suggest short-term memory as an essential aspect of intelligence. (SLD)

Children (ages 9 and 14) with mild mental retardation and matched controls without mental retardation were given a test of their ability to perceive relations among different stimuli and transfer learned behavior from familiar to less familiar environments. Results showed that subjects with retardation relied only on prototype information, whereas…

Study examined transfer of learners' first language (L1) orthographic processing strategies to second language processing. Two groups learning Japanese, differing by L1 writing system (phonographic vs. morphographic), were tested on ability to represent novel kanji characters in short-term memory. Results indicate learners with a morphographic L1…

Summarizes recent studies identifying specific linguistic-cognitive markers for reading disabilities and describes efforts to develop measures of these markers in the areas of phonological awareness, rapid automatic naming, and verbal short-term memory. (Author/DB)

In 2 experiments, the authors tested whether the classical modality effect--that is, the stronger recency effect for auditory items relative to visual items--can be extended to the spatial domain. An order reconstruction task was undertaken with four types of material: visual-spatial, auditory-spatial, visual-verbal, and auditory-verbal.…

This study determined the degree to which the phonological and executive components of memory reflect language-specific capacities in reading achievement. We tested whether the memory processes in a sample of English-language learners that played a major role in predicting second-language acquisition and risk for reading disability (RD) in Grade 1…

Background: The objective of this study is to identify intact and deficient cognitive processes in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and children with high functioning autism (HFA). Method: Three rigorously diagnosed groups of children aged between 6 and 12 years (54 ADHD, 41 HFA, and 41 normal controls) were tested on…

In this study, the author elucidated whether reading experience continues to contribute to word recognition skills in readers with well-internalized reading skills. The participants performed consecutive same or different judgments regarding the identicalness of letters, words, and pseudohomophones. For a more detailed examination of how increased…