Recent research found no evidence that children aged 7-10 years are able to direct their attention to more valuable information in working memory. The current experiments examined whether children demonstrate this ability when the reward system used to motivate participants is engaging and age-appropriate. This was explored across different memory…

A great deal of research has focused on tasks, particularly for adult second language learners. In this paper we provide an account of studies that have investigated children and tasks -- an age group that have received far less attention. We consider, in particular, the impact of tasks on children's language learning, how their design features…

The main purpose of the current study was to provide empirical evidence to support or refute assumptions of phenotypic deficits in motivation for children with Down syndrome (DS). Children with moderate intellectual disability (MID) associated with etiologies other than DS were recruited in an extension of a previous study that involved children…

The aim of this paper is to show how engaging students in real-life mathematical situations can stimulate their mathematical creative thinking. We analyzed the mathematical modeling of two girls, aged 10 and 13 years, as they worked on an authentic task involving the selection of a track team. The girls displayed several modeling cycles that…