We used eye-tracking to investigate the roles of enhanced discrimination and peripheral selection in superior visual search in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children with ASD were faster at visual search than their typically developing peers. However, group differences in performance and eye-movements did not vary with the level of difficulty of…

Native English speakers experience difficulty acquiring Arabic emphatic consonants. Arabic language textbooks have suggested that learners focus on adjacent vowels for cues to these consonants; however, the utility of such a strategy has not been empirically tested. This study investigated the perception of Arabic emphatic-plain contrasts by means…

Tone languages such as Mandarin use voice pitch to signal lexical contrasts, presenting a challenge for second/foreign language (L2) learners whose native languages do not use pitch in this manner. The present study examined components of an aptitude for mastering L2 lexical tone. Native English speakers with no previous tone language experience…

There is a need to dynamically monitor progress of functional auditory performance in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The Functional Auditory Performance Indicators (FAPI) is a monitoring tool for children with hearing loss but has not yet been described in children with ASD. The aim was to describe the overall performance of…

The noise in generating an agreed upon definition of instructional leadership that extends beyond theory to the practice of principals has been almost deafening in the last few decades. Many emphasize the need for the role of the principal to adapt to meet the demands of leadership that maximizes student achievement, but lack the specificity to…

This article describes a visual language comprised of abstract shapes that has been shown to be effective in communicating prior knowledge between and within members of a small team or group. The visual language includes a set of geometric shapes and rules that guide the construction of the abstract diagrams that are the external representation of…

In this paper, the authentic education system defined with multidisciplinary perspectives (Watagodakumbura, 2013a, 2013b) is viewed from an additional perspective of analytical psychology. Analytical psychology provides insights into human development and is becoming more and more popular among practicing psychologist in the recent past. In…

Environmental print, such as signs and product labels, consist of both print and contextual cues designed to attract the visual attention of the reader. However, contextual cues may draw young children's attention away from the print, thus questioning the value of environmental print in early reading development. Eye tracker technology was used to…

Purpose: Factor analysis is a useful technique to aid in organizing multivariate data characterizing speech, language, and auditory abilities. However, knowledge of the limitations of factor analysis is essential for proper interpretation of results. The present study used simulated test scores to illustrate some characteristics of factor…

Purpose: Frequency fluctuations in human voices can usually be described as coherent frequency modulation (FM). As listeners with hearing impairment (HI listeners) are typically less sensitive to FM than listeners with normal hearing (NH listeners), this study investigated whether hearing loss affects the perception of a sung vowel based on FM…

This study is the result of a two-year experimental collaboration with children from my piano class. Together, the children and I designed a method that uses visual expression as a starting point for composing and visualising music-theoretical concepts. In this method various dimensions of musicality such as listening, creating, noting down and…

With many features competing for attention in their visual environment, infants must learn to deploy attention toward informative cues while ignoring distractions. Three eye tracking experiments were conducted to investigate whether 6- and 8-month-olds (total N = 102) would shift attention away from a distractor stimulus to learn a cue-reward…

Background: Considerable evidence suggests that performance across a variety of cognitive tasks is effectively supported by the use of verbal and nonverbal strategies. Studies exploring the usefulness of such strategies in children with specific language impairment (SLI) are scarce and report inconsistent findings. Aims: To examine the effects of…

This paper will report on the findings from classroom observations and focus group discussions conducted on the topic of popularity and fitting in at school with girls and boys from four government secondary schools in Antigua. The findings show that whilst boys did experience difficulties negotiating academic success and acceptable masculinities,…

Infants' ability to mentally track the orientation of an object during a hidden rotation was investigated (N = 28 in each experiment). A toy on a turntable was fully covered and then rotated 90°. When revealed, the toy had turned with the turntable (probable event), remained at its starting orientation (improbable event in Experiment 1), or…