Research on humans and monkeys is reviewed that supports the view that the medial temporal lobe, and, perhaps more specifically the amygdala, is the neural substrate underlying social deficits in autism. The relationship of early medial temporal lobe lesions to memory and socioemotional behavior is reviewed, as are the roles of the amygdala and…

Compared two-month old's abilities to detect changes in word order for sequences spoken as a well-formed sentence versus two unrelated, but well-formed, sentence fragments. Results suggest that infants are able to remember the order of spoken words when they are embedded within the coherent prosodic structure of a single well-formed sentence. (HTH)

Measured cognitive processing time, imagery skill, and spatial memory span of 128 children and adults, ages 8 to 20 years. Found that performance on spatial memory span tasks was largely predicted by imagery skill, which in turn was strongly linked to processing time; age was much less of a predictor in both cases. (EAJ)

This study investigated the retention of stories by 20 children with mild mental retardation (MMR), 28 with learning disabilities, and 38 typical children (ages 10-13). The children with MMR recalled less than others, but all recalled story content with many connections on the causal chain better than content off the causal chain. (CR)

Finds a significant relationship between the acquisition of word and pseudoword reading skills, working memory, and syntactic awareness skills within and across the three languages among a group of Israeli-Arab students ages 14-15 years. Notes that trilingualism of this nature seems not to have negative consequences for the development of oral…

Describes the development and implementation of a unit plan which merged drama and historical discourses. Notes the plan also facilitated an inquiry amongst students into the nature of how history is defined, studied, and remembered and why certain voices are included or excluded. Explains that the focus of the unit was two recent publications of…

A study found that 4 boys (age 11) with mild disabilities were able to acquire the behaviors for instructive feedback stimuli when the stimuli were presented after trials on any of a set of target behaviors and could acquire instructive feedback behaviors during acquisition of or mastery of target behaviors. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Examined the role of phonological memory and phonological awareness in foreign language word learning. Measures of phonological memory and phonological awareness were administered to 58 Chinese-speaking 4-year-olds four times over 2 years. Results suggest phonological memory may support foreign language word learning but phonological awareness may…

Reviews current literature concerning mnemonic strategy use as it relates to the gifted learner. Mnemonic devices are explained and the benefits and limitations of mnemonic strategy instruction are evaluated. Further research in mnemonics is urged to determine whether mnemonic strategies produce long-term performance deficits with gifted learners.…

Examined the relation between developmental suggestibility effects and preschoolers' emerging ability to reason about conflicting mental representations. Subjects were 42 three- to five-year-olds. Found in the children significant initial encoding and ability to retrieve event details. Also found an integration between children's theory of mind…

Accuracy of adult recollections of sexual abuse were compared for adults known to have been abused about 20 years earlier and matched controls. Results from 1,196 adults indicate substantial under-reporting, gender differences in reporting and accuracy, good discriminant validity, and predictive efficiency of self-reports for women. (SLD)

Examines the literature review by D.S. Holmes which is frequently cited as evidence against recovered memories of child sexual abuse. This examination concludes that Holmes has been cited out of context and that his conclusions are not directly relevant to the current controversy regarding recovered memory. (LSR)

A study trained 10 5-year-old typical children, 11 5-year-old gifted children, and 11 7-year-old typical children on strategy use. Several differences among groups were found, generally favoring the gifted children in terms of performance and maintenance of strategies. In addition, the gifted children seemed to use categorization strategies…

This study examined effects of age and IQ on implicit memory in adults with mild or moderate mental retardation with (n=48) and without (n=46) Down syndrome. Although implicit memory showed an age-associated difference and IQ-associated variation in adults with mental retardation, these effects were relatively small, which supported theories…

Using a descriptive quantitative methodology for categorical data analysis, investigates whether Chinese students' conceptions of learning included memorization. Explains that the University of Hong Kong students (n=25) ranked six conceptions of learning. Includes references. (CMK)