Background: Down syndrome (DS) has been the focus of much cognitive and developmental research; however, there is a gap in knowledge regarding sustained attention, particularly across different sensory domains. This research examined the hypothesis that children with DS would demonstrate superior visual rather than auditory performance on a…

Deficits in verbal short-term memory have been identified as one factor underlying reading and spelling disorders. However, the nature of this deficit is still unclear. It has been proposed that poor readers make less use of phonological coding, especially if the task can be solved through visual strategies. In the framework of Baddeley's…

A minimally verbal child with autism was exposed to short daily sessions of watching his parents on video in conjunction with an FM auditory trainer for a period of 4 weeks. Baseline measures of verbal and social behaviors were taken pre-treatment and repeated post treatment. Results indicate substantial gains in word productions, social…

Objective: To investigate the effects of methylphenidate (MPH) on components of working memory (WM) in children with ADHD and determine whether MPH produces differential effects on WM in children with comorbid anxiety (ANX). Method: Participants were a clinical sample of 130 children with ADHD, aged 6 to 12 years old (32% comorbid ANX). Each child…

In these two studies, neonatal oculomotor behavior was observed under various conditions of visual and auditory stimulation. Findings showed auditory and visual perception to be relatively independent during the neonatal period. (Author/JMB)

Success of cross-modal matching with subjects as young as four years old suggests that it is possible to investigate intermodal organization in young children. (RH)

Speakers employ acoustic cues (pitch accents) to indicate that a word is important, but may also use visual cues (beat gestures, head nods, eyebrow movements) for this purpose. Even though these acoustic and visual cues are related, the exact nature of this relationship is far from well understood. We investigate whether producing a visual beat…

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder often described as being characterized by a dissociative cognitive architecture, in which profound impairments of visuo-spatial cognition contrast with relative preservation of linguistic, face recognition and auditory short-memory abilities. This asymmetric and dissociative cognition…

Two experiments were conducted to examine whether abrupt onsets are capable of reflexively capturing attention when they occur outside the current focus of spatial attention, as would be expected if exogenous orienting operates in a truly automatic fashion. The authors established a highly focused attentional state by means of the central…

Background: Many popular educational programmes claim to be "brain-based", despite pleas from the neuroscience community that these neuromyths do not have a basis in scientific evidence about the brain. Purpose: The main aim of this paper is to examine several of the most popular neuromyths in the light of the relevant neuroscientific and…

The study investigated perceptual preferences of five autistic children (mean age 10.6 years). Results indicated a weak (not statistically significant) preference for auditory musical stimuli over visual stimuli. Autistic children spent significantly more time than did normals with the musical stimulus. (Author/DB)