Examined whether preschool children focus on a small number of attributes or attend to whole exemplars in learning basic categories for fictitious animals. Found little evidence that children employed rules, but found strong evidence that children encoded exemplars as integrated wholes during category training. Discusses implications for theories…

This article offers suggestions for incorporating cognitive principles into mathematics instruction for students with disabilities, such as identifying underlying concepts and relationships and teaching them explicitly, and presenting instruction from a problem-solving perspective. A checklist is provided for determining whether or not…

Discusses hypertext reading environments, focusing on a study of university students that examined the nature of a reader's representation of hypertext content in the presence or absence of a specified learning objective. Discusses concept maps and suggests implications for instructional design. (Author/LRW)

This study tested three hypothesized mechanisms through which explanations might facilitate problem-solving strategy generalization in kindergarteners through second graders. Results suggested that explanations facilitated generalization through the creation of novel goal structures that enabled children to persist in use of the new strategy…

Used multigroup scaling models to separate the contributions of cognitive style from ability in school-age children's performance on Figural Intersection Test. Results showed that field-dependent children had greater odds of success than field-independent children when the task's mental-attentional demand was above the child's mental-attentional…

Examined whether a sample of variability measures could be reduced to a smaller number of factors with 8 independent samples of second through fourth graders and adults. Found that a 2-factor model of strategy diversity and strategy change was supported for all samples. Strategy diversity positively related to children's recall; strategy change…

Looks at how the theory of language-learning strategies (LLS), as used by speakers of other languages, has developed alongside other theories of language teaching and learning, and at the place of LLS in the field of contemporary eclectic language teaching and learning. Focuses on one aspect of LLS in practice by reporting on a study conducted…

Examined the effect of functional values of stimuli on orienting response elicitation. Subjects were 50 4-month-old infants and were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 experimental conditions. Results suggested the importance of taking into account the functional value of stimuli when analyzing infant attention. (MOK)

Presents the results of (n=23) seventh- and eighth-grade students' interviews as they solve problems related to four linear geometric patterns involving perimeter and area. Students' responses suggest four levels of thinking about linear geometric number patterns. (Contains 33 references.) (Author/ASK)

Discusses numeracy strategy. Focuses on gaining insight into student understanding of number. Discusses the benefits of this long-overdue numeracy strategy. (ASK)

This article discusses the use of a neural systems perspective to explain some of the behavioral impairments in autism and why some methods work the way they do. It suggests some optimal or even new ways of improving the behavioral treatment of autism and coupling it with other treatment methods. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Examines the role of interactivity in the presentation of science news on the World Wide Web. Proposes and tests a model of interactive information processing that suggests that characteristics of users and Web sites influence interactivity, which influences knowledge acquisition. Describes use of a think-aloud method to study participants' mental…

Introduces a special issue on the ways in which symbolic tools enable, mediate, and shape mathematical thinking while being themselves a product of these processes. (Author/MM)

Presents a cultural-developmental framework for the analysis of children's mathematics in collective practices and illustrates the heuristic value of the framework through the analysis of videotaped episodes drawn from a middle-school classroom. Discusses the promise and limitations of the framework as a method for furthering understanding of the…

Analyzes two classroom episodes guided by the assumption that thinking can be conceptualized as an activity of communication and learning can be regarded as modifying and extending one's discursive ways. Aims to uncover the ways in which the discursive uses of such new symbolic tools were interactively constructed by the students. Concludes that…