This study examined middle school students' reported awareness of strategic approaches they used when they had difficulty reading science text. Student responses indicated that they used text and social context to resolve comprehension difficulties but that they were largely unaware of the use of prior knowledge for the same purpose. (SM)

Explores the relationship between writing ability, cognitive development, and orality among students of minority cultures, particularly the African American culture. Suggests that students from cultures with strong oral traditions do not lag behind other students but must nevertheless succeed in making the transition to written standard discourse.…

Discusses and explains the conditions under which first language transfer occurs in terms of the connectionist framework of second language representation, processing, and acquisition. Identifies these conditions as interlingual mapping, markedness, language distance, learner characteristics, cognitive load and sociolinguistic context. (104…

Argues that "information structure management" is an important and problematic part of the competence sought by nonnative speakers, particularly for goal-related discourse types where clarity and argumentative power play a role. Simulated negotiation material is used to demonstrate how certain nonnative structures hamper the…

Differences in storage and rehearsal components of the phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad were investigated in individuals with (n=19) and without (n=21) intellectual disability matched on memory span. Those with intellectual disability had specific difficulty in the rehearsal component of the phonological loop. Groups did not differ in…

Describes purpose of private speech and stages of development of private speech from birth to age 8. Details ways teachers can support children's gradual internalization of private speech. Outlines procedures for assessing private speech progress. Notes classroom implications related to anticipating children's thinking, asking children to answer…

Discusses computer mediated communication in education and reports findings from a study of a teacher training program in Singapore that examined the quality of message ideas, thinking, and interaction in an asynchronous CMC environment. Topics include participation and quantity of individual messages; interaction with peers and lecturers; and…

Examined contributions of cognitive processing speed, short-term memory capacity, and attention to infant visual recognition memory. Found that infants who showed better attention and faster processing had better recognition memory. Contributions of attention and processing speed were independent of one another and similar at all ages studied--5,…

This longitudinal study investigated the relation between mothers' descriptions of mental states portrayed in pictures and 2- to 4-year-old children's theory of mind. Mothers described pictures to children at 3 different times during the year. Findings indicated that mothers' use of mental state utterances at early time points correlated with…

Two experiments investigated kindergarten through fourth-graders' and adults' ability to evaluate the certainty of deductive inferences, inductive inferences, and guesses, and explain the origins of inferential knowledge. Findings indicated that children rated their own deductions as more certain than guesses, but when judging another person's…

Three studies examined theory-of-mind concepts among children ages 6-13 years with deafness or autism, and 4-year-olds with normal development. Findings indicated that while the children with deafness or autism scored significantly lower on standard tests of false belief understanding, they scored higher on even the most challenging drawing-based…

Examines the performance of children in different grades as they attempt to solve simple equations involving addition and subtraction of integer numbers. The extended task involves creating a story that matches the equations. (DDR)

Articles in this special issue on the theme of cognitive skills acquisition in lifelong learning begins with an analysis of cognitive skills, then moves to various methodologies and approaches for their effective acquisition, and concludes with a specific implementation of computer systems facilitating this acquisition. (AEF)

This article considers whether Asperger syndrome (AS) should necessarily be viewed as a disability or as a difference. It concludes that "difference" is a more neutral and fair description. A model (the emphasizing-systemizing model) is summarized that attempts to define in what way individuals with AS are different. (Contains references.)…

Explores and elaborates on the relationship between goals, identities, and learning. Presses for their utility as a model by which to understand the nature of learning in general and to better understand the way in which race, culture, and learning become intertwined for minority students in American schools. (Author/MM)