This study with 12 elementary school children with mild mental retardationship found that the relation between lexical knowledge and mental age depended upon the nature of the vocabulary test. Results suggested that mental age in this population was more strongly related to knowledge of abstract relational terms than to knowledge of labels for…

Two experiments with a total of 17 adolescents or adults with severe mental retardation evaluated the potential of exclusion procedures (selection of an undefined object in comparison with a defined object) as a means of training basic naming skills. Reliable exclusion and naming performance were demonstrated in nearly all subjects. (DB)

Investigates the role of intraverbal learning (a process through which semantic knowledge is acquired from purely linguistic information) in preschool children's acquisition of semantic concepts. Shows that the relative effectiveness of pictorial and intraverbal information depends on the child's age, the type of information supplied, and the…

A research study designed to measure understanding of economic terms among 13- and 14-year olds is summarized. For purposes of the study, two tests were constructed: a 10-item questionnaire focusing on definitions of words such as banking, production, costs, money, and wealth, and a compilation of drawings and photographs developed to reflect…

Examines teachers' differing uses of student-gathered data during science investigations. The results show that student language use and concept understanding differed between two different instructional approaches. Suggestions are provided for using student-gathered data in teaching elementary school science. (LZ)