The effects of varying training settings and objects on the development of skill generalization were studied with 60 retarded students (5-16 years old). Research procedures were identical for all groups except for the manipulation of settings and objects. A factorial analysis of covariance supported the prediction that the visual discrimination…

Procedures were used to assess capacity to sustain adaptive responding and discrimination learning ability in 18 psychotic nonverbal children. It was concluded that the measures had good face validity with respect to assessment of discrimination, learning ability, and tolerance for intermittent reinforcement. (SB)

Following pretraining on three figures, 44 nonhandicapped preschoolers were assigned to experimental groups to investigate methods of integrating a new, similar symbol into a set of familiar symbols to approximate the difficult disciminations encountered by young children in school. (Author)

Results indicated the level of correct responding was higher under the "specific reinforcement" condition than under either "nonspecific" or "variable reinforcement" conditions, suggesting that a strategy of reinforcement which includes cue values of the discriminative stimulus may strengthen the learning process. (Author/CL)

The study was designed to examine and clarify systematically the reinforcement parameters that underlie 96 adolescent male delinquents' responses to verbal and token reward and/or punishment. (Author)

Eight newborn babies were tested to see whether they could make discriminating head-turn responses to the sound of a 9-second recording of a human voice coming 15 degrees, 30 degrees, and 80 degrees from the midline, from either the right or left side. Journal availability: see EC 113 765. (Author)

Two experiments compared 6-month-olds' numerosity discrimination performance on both large numbers and small numbers with both total filled area and total contour length controlled. Results showed that infants succeeded in discriminating 4 from 8 elements, but failed to discriminate 2 from 4 elements, providing evidence for the existence of two…

The ability of 10 normal-speaking 5-year-olds and 10-normal-speaking 7-year-olds to categorize consonants as "dripping" (stop), "flowing" (fricative), "tongue" (lingual place of articulation), "or "lip" (labial place of articulation) was evaluated. Children's ability to categorize was evaluated as an indicator of their awareness of feature…

Studies the allocation of attention of 100 four- and five-year-olds on a selective attention task. Results suggest that preschoolers are capable of using selective strategies when the task is made meaningful by the inclusion of a familiar script that provides supportive cognitive context. (RJC)

The double-blind and placebo controlled study with 45 autistic children (ages 2-7) found that the drug, haloperidol, showed powerful therapeutic effects in reducing behavioral symptoms when administered for 4 weeks at doses raging from 0.25 to 4.0 milligrams/day. Learning effects were not found. (Author/DB)

Replies to Gholson's commentary (PS 522 655) on the article by Coldren and Colombo in this monograph. Discusses limitations in the shift procedure methodology traditionally used in research on discrimination learning, and considers the use in future research of methodologies that can precisely decompose children's responses to feedback during…

Familiarized 6- and 8-month-olds with speech sounds from a phonetic continuum, exhibiting a bimodal or unimodal frequency distribution. Found that only infants in the bimodal condition discriminated tokens from the endpoints of the continuum. Results demonstrate that infants are sensitive to the statistical distribution of speech sounds in the…

Fos protein immunodetection was used to investigate the neuronal activation elicited in some olfactory-related areas after either learning of an olfactory discrimination task or its reactivation 10 d later. Trained rats (T) progressively acquired the association between one odor of a pair and water-reward in a four-arm maze. Two groups of…