Describes the nineteenth-century parlor trick entitled the Fluttering Heart phenomenon which uses a red heart on a bright blue background. Discusses theories concerning the apparent fluttering. Suggests doing the trick with a red light-emitting diode in a darkened room. (MVL)

Three experiments examined 4- and 6-month-olds' sensitivity to the unity of a partly occluded moving rod undergoing translation, rotation, or oscillation. Findings suggested that all types of common motion were not equivalent for specifying infants' perceptions of occluded objects. (Author)

A study used positron emission tomography (PET) to study patterns of brain activation during auditory processing in five high-functioning adults with autism. Results found that participants showed reversed hemispheric dominance during the verbal auditory stimulation and reduced activation of the auditory cortex and cerebellum. (CR)

To comply with Britain's 1988 Education Reform Act, school governors (elected or appointed advisory bodies of parents, teachers, community and local political party representatives) required new training. This article examines training in one shire county during the mid-1980s, compared with improved, "unitary" development services in…

Describes an experiment in which students work together in small groups, take data, and make a calculation to roughly determine the diameter of the blind spot in their eye. (WRM)

A study of 434 Maine principals explored determinants of principals' perceived success. Role clarity was a better predictor of success than time spent involved in 41 activities. Elementary principals felt more successful than secondary principals. Participants were busy managers, but lacked a sense of agency as school leaders. (16 references) (MLH)

Presents an approach to teaching pronunciation to Chinese students of English that has been successful in improving students' pronunciation and intonation, as well as their basic skills in English. The approach compares Chinese and English sound systems, advocates perception before production, and emphasizes teaching in a meaningful and…

Three experiments examined the hypothesis that individual differences in look-duration during infancy covary with different modes of visual intake and encoding, with longer look-durations reflecting encoding based on prolonged inspection of local visual properties, and briefer durations reflecting encoding based on a global, or global-to-local…

The performance of eight adults with Asperger syndrome was compared with the performance of controls on a range of perceptual tasks designed to test two models of perceptual deficit: the central coherence deficit model and the hierarchization deficit model. Tentative support for the hierarchization deficit model was demonstrated. (Contains ten…

Describes an approach to faculty development that relies on faculty learning from one another through peer observation. Rather than equating such observation with evaluating a colleague's performance, faculty observers are urged to approach the assignment as "students of teaching." (DB)

Analysis of Student Social Support Scale (SSSS), a four-factor scale (Parent, Teacher, Classmate, and Close Friend), revealed that (1) SSSS is highly reliable, (2) social support differed by developmental/age groups and by sex, and (3) relationships exist among social support, self-concept, and social behavior. Concludes that SSSS is a promising…

Examination of the role of teacher educators at one small college in England finds teaching staff are labeled as either academics or non-academics (educationalists). Argues that educationalists are excluded (and exclude themselves) from participation in the academy and inhabit another world which more accurately mirrors the school room than the…

Examined the role of attention in explaining dyadic and triadic joint attention difficulties in autism in three experiments. Found that children with autism were less responsive than developmentally delayed controls in orienting to attention bids and in following a human head-turn cue yet had no difficulty in shifting attention and were faster in…

Advises new substitute teachers to be prepared, tote emergency activity folders, dress professionally (but wear flamingo earrings), be early, figure out the game plan, communicate expectations to students, enforce consequences, have a gimmick to reward cooperation, relish the teachable moment, leave the room tidy, and believe in themselves. (MLH)

Two experiments used phoneme counting tasks to investigate the foundations of phonemic awareness. Found that first graders and college students had some ability to distinguish between monophthongs (as in "he") and diphthongs (as in "how"), and they tended to count fewer "sounds" for syllables ending with the more…