Describes development, composition, and interpretation of a series of individually administered tests to identify adult basic education learning problems. Test areas include screening for visual/auditory functions and diagnostic evaluation of visual/auditory perceptions and dyslexia. Results can provide basis for referral to medical or visual…

Describes how phonics can help deaf students in both speech production and reading despite their inability to obtain auditory feedback. Successful deaf graduate students are reported to use tactile-kinesthetic feedback in interpreting phonetic information. Teachers of younger students are urged to emphasize speech instruction (even if speech is…

The developmental trend from overall-similarity to dimensional-identity classifications is explained by a quantitative model. The model provides good qualitative fits to the extant data. Three experiments examining classifications in 120 2- to 8-year-olds and in 20 undergraduates support specific new claims of the model. (TJH)

Reports on three experiments that do the following: 1) investigate the motivational and reinforcing structure underlying male sex role action in a three-person (a female and two males) exchange; and 2) contribute new information on females' interpersonal evaluation of males expressing masculine sex typed and androgynous sex role orientation. (MW)

In this study of sensitivity to viewpoint, children between the ages of 6 and 14 years were asked to draw an L-shaped array of 3 cubes from 1 of 3 views. At every age, children showed sensitivity to their view in the sense that there were consistent differences between the drawings produced in the three viewing conditions. (SH)

Eighteen science activities that help children learn to use their senses are described. Multisensory activities and single-sensory activities are provided. Each activity includes a list of materials, the procedure, information for the teacher, questions, and a vocabulary list of words often used by children to describe what is taking place. (KR)

Three experiments investigated 4-, 6-, and 8-month-olds' perception of the audible, visible, and combined attributes of bimodally specified syllables. Results suggested that at 4 months, infants attended primarily to the featural information, at 6 months primarily to the asynchrony, and at 8 months to both features independently. (Author/KB)

Three experiments examined characteristics of a stimulus-cueing retrieval from long-term memory for 3-month olds. Used mobiles displaying either Qs (feature-present stimuli) or Os (feature-absent stimuli) and tested 24 hours later. Findings indicated that target-distractor similarity constraints, whether or not a feature-present stimulus, would…

A multimodal assessment of 19 children (ages 4-9) with learning disabilities was used to identify problem areas. The majority presented with deficits involving both visual and auditory modalities, as well as problems with motor abilities and concentration skills. Subgroups of problem areas were found to occur together. (Contains references.)…

Background: Claims that children with reading and oral language deficits have impaired perception of sequential sounds are usually based on psychophysical measures of auditory temporal processing (ATP) designed to characterise group performance. If we are to use these measures (e.g., the Tallal, 1980, Repetition Test) as the basis for intervention…

The McGurk effect is usually presented as an example of fast, automatic, multisensory integration. We report a series of experiments designed to directly assess these claims. We used a syllabic version of the "speeded classification" paradigm, whereby response latencies to the first (target) syllable of spoken word-like stimuli are slowed down…

Multielement visual tracking and visual search are 2 tasks that are held to require visual-spatial attention. The authors used the attentional operating characteristic (AOC) method to determine whether both tasks draw continuously on the same attentional resource (i.e., whether the 2 tasks are mutually exclusive). The authors found that observers…

There is strong converging evidence suggesting that developmental dyslexia stems from a phonological processing deficit. However, this hypothesis has been challenged by the widely admitted heterogeneity of the dyslexic population, and by several reports of dyslexic individuals with no apparent phonological deficit. In this paper, we discuss the…

Adults with Asperger Syndrome (AS) can recognise simple emotions and pass basic theory of mind tasks, but have difficulties recognising more complex emotions and mental states. This study describes a new battery of tasks, testing recognition of 20 complex emotions and mental states from faces and voices. The battery was given to males and females…

Virtual reality (VR) technology has demonstrated effectiveness in a variety of technical learning situations, yet little is known about its differential effects on learners with different levels of visual processing skill. This small-scale exploratory study tested VR through quasi-experimental methodology and a theoretical/conceptual framework…