A study used the Three-Interval Forced-Choice Test of Speech Pattern Contrast Perception (THRIFT) to examine sensory-level speech-perception performance under the input modalities of hearing alone, speech-reading alone, and the two combined in 44 children (ages 5-10). Within each condition there were significant influences of age on performance…

Three experiments assessed the intersensory redundancy hypothesis in early infancy. Findings indicated that habituation to a bimodal rhythm resulted in discrimination of a novel rhythm, whereas habituation to the same rhythm presented unimodally resulted in no evidence of discrimination. Temporal synchrony between the bimodal auditory and visual…

Comparison of two strategies--manual guidance only and manual guidance plus verbal prompts--with 6 students (ages 9 to 19) whose multiple disabilities included total blindness and severe mental retardation found that prompting methods that require shifting verbal information to the performance of a manual task may interfere with the learning of…

A five-step model intervention called "Sensational Thinking," which incorporates readiness, reception, reflection, revelation, and re-creation activities, was evaluated with four kindergarten classes. Experimental groups showed increased creativity over control groups in solving paradoxical problems. The study is seen as supporting the premise…

Objective: This annotation reviews recent evidence that points to the likely role of aberrant neural oscillations in the pathogenesis of Tourette syndrome (TS). Methods: The available anatomic and electrophysiological findings in TS are reviewed in the context of an emerging picture of the crucial role that neural oscillations play in maintaining…

During an out-of-body experience (OBE), the experient seems to be awake and to see his body and the world from a location outside the physical body. A closely related experience is autoscopy (AS), which is characterized by the experience of seeing one's body in extrapersonal space. Yet, despite great public interest and many case studies,…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether children with Asperger Syndrome and children with autism exhibit difference sensory profiles. The Sensory Profile (Dunn, 1999), completed on 86 individuals with Asperger Syndrome and 86 persons with autism matched for age, revealed differences in three of 23 areas evaluated: (a) Emotional/Social…

One of a series of documents produced by a nationwide network of early childhood education specialists, teachers, parents, and Head Start staff, the guide provides a year of multisensory learning activities for children ages 3-8. In an easy-to-follow calendar format, sensation activities are given with directions in an accompanying teacher's…

An age-related decline in performance is typically observed in research on tasks that rely on cognitive processing. However, such declines must not be accepted as indisputable evidence that the learning efficiency of older adults is necessarily impaired. Cognitive factors such as a production deficiency in long-term memory and/or a retrieval…

This study investigates the differences between the auditory-visual integration ability of 80 sixth grade students when such variables as socioeconomic status, sex, intelligence, conservation ability, and reading achievement were controlled. Socioeconomic Strata were determined by Hollingshead's Four Factor Index of Social Position. The California…

A measurement device, Assessment of Sensorimotor Integration in Preschool Children, was developed to assess postural control, reflex integration and bilateral motor integration in developmentally delayed children (3 to 5 years old). The test was administered to 113 normal children and results were compared with data collected on 23 developmentally…

Presented are proceedings of a conference which focused on basic assessment and intervention techniques for use in the education and habilitation of lower functioning deaf blind and multihandicapped children. Following an introduction by D. Overbeck are papers with the following titles and authors: "Considerations in the Psychological Assessment…

This paper studies aspects of the conceptual basis for language acquisition, with a focus on the perceptual-cognitive skills used to assign meanings to words. A first assumption is that the correspondence between adult and child perceptual features allows for early communication. Apparently, in the first year, naming is characterized by…

In order to assess the effects of environmental stimulation on the perceptual thresholds of high active and low active mentally retarded persons, 36 male and female residents from a state institution (mean IQ 56 and 60 for high and low groups, respectively) were observed under three conditions of environmental stimulation: no noise, white noise,…

The collection of eight conference papers on problems of auditory, visual, and speech handicaps begins with a review of what is known about deaf-blind children and early development. Following papers are devoted to spontaneous vocalization and babbling in aurally handicapped infants, psychological synergism (an approach to consideration of…