Recent research findings show that experiences alter the anatomical structure of the brain, that the effects of experience on the brain differ at different ages and between males and females, and that brain development is not complete until about age 18. (SV)

Children should learn foreign languages during a window of opportunity that is widest until about age 10. After that, the window closes on the speech sounds of a new language, and it becomes more difficult to acquire native or near-native speech while learning a foreign language. (MLH)

Summarizes the benefits of early foreign language learning, including the personal, cognitive, academic, professional, and societal benefits. (Author/VWL)

This study developed a test battery to assess the cognitive skills in children with physical limitations. A preliminary battery of 83 items was administered to 26 children, aged 26 to 36 months, with severe physical impairments. Rasch analysis yielded a final battery of 35 items with high internal consistency, interrater reliability, and…

Examined whether 5- and 6-year-olds understand that addition and subtraction cancel each other and whether this understanding is based on identity or quantity of addend and subtrahend. Found that children used inversion principle. Six- to eight-year-olds also used inversion and decomposition to solve a + b - (B+1) problems. Concluded that…

Examined development of inhibitory control using a stop-signal procedure with subjects ages 6 to 81 years. Found that the speed of stopping becomes faster with increasing age throughout childhood, with limited evidence of slowing across adulthood. The go-signal reaction time clearly increased through childhood and slowed markedly through…

Two experiments examined whether associating an imitation task with an operant task affected 6-month-olds' memory for either task. Results indicated that infants successfully imitated a puppet's action for up to 2 weeks only if the associated operant task (pressing a lever to activate a miniature train) was retrieved first. Follow-up study…

Puts reading and spelling difficulties in a cognitive developmental perspective that views the acquisition of reading, writing, and spelling as a sequence of characteristic strategies for dealing with written language. Concludes that the ultimate goal is to reduce the great number of children who fail to acquire literacy due to teachers' lack of…

Explored in three experiments children's understanding of emotion in speech. Found gradual developmental change from 4-year-olds' focus on content to adult's focus on paralanguage. Children exhibited greater response latencies to utterances with conflicting cues than to those with nonconflicting cues. They accurately labeled affective paralanguage…

Preschoolers viewed stimulus sets comprised of a sample picture and three types of matches and were asked to choose a match that "went with" each sample. Children's choices indicated that a shift occurs between 3 and 4 years of age from a taxonomic bias to a thematic bias. Animate sample stimuli enhanced children's tendency to adopt…

Procedural understanding should be taught to students for an understanding of the 'nature of science'. Considers some of the concepts of evidence that are particularly important to biology, and discusses how and why these ideas could be taught. (Contains 21 references.) (Author/YDS)

Trained 3-, 5-, and 8-year-olds in temporal bisection task, with nonstandard comparison stimuli spaced linearly between short or long standard visual stimuli. Statistical analyses and results from different theoretical models of the data all suggested that temporal sensitivity was higher in the 8-year-olds than in younger groups, even when the…

Two experiments examined relation between age-related changes in retention and age-related changes in the misinformation effect. Found large age-related retention differences when participants were interviewed immediately and after 1 day, but after 6 weeks, differences were minimal. Exposure to misleading information increased commission errors.…

Analysis of course videos of 11 instructors of agricultural distance education courses showed their instruction achieved objectives for lower-level cognition (remembering, processing) but not higher-level outcomes (creating, evaluating). The cognition level of Iowa Communications Network courses was higher than those delivered by other distance…

Assessed the relationship between temporally distant antecedent events (TDEs) and the frequency and function of aggressive and out-of-seat behaviors occurring in school. Results were consistent with previous literature that describes certain antecedent events as establishing operations. Discussion includes how these events interact to alter the…