Purpose: The purpose of this article is to analyse the mediating effects of perception of learning between occupational satisfaction, affective reactions, utility reactions and perceived training transfer. Design/methodology/approach: The participants in the study were 185 Portuguese teachers who attended a professional training programme.…

Learning names for parts of objects can be challenging for children, as it requires overcoming their tendency to name whole objects. We test whether comparing items can facilitate learning names for their parts. Applying the structure-mapping theory of comparison leads to two predictions: (a) young children will find it easier to identify a common…

The author reads with great interest Rhoda Bernard's (2005) article "Making Music, Making Selves." Bernard's concerns about the multiple identities that she holds, and people's tendency to compartmentalize their various identities according to audience and role are issues for the author as she designs and teaches within music teacher education…

A biologically detailed computational model is described of how categorization judgments become automatic in tasks that depend on procedural learning. The model assumes 2 neural pathways from sensory association cortex to the premotor area that mediates response selection. A longer and slower path projects to the premotor area via the striatum,…

The reading comprehension and visual word recognition in 50 deaf children and adolescents with at least 3 years of cochlear implant (CI) use were evaluated. Their skills were contrasted with reference data of 500 deaf children without CIs. The reading comprehension level in children with CIs was expected to surpass that in deaf children without…

Spoken language consists of a complex, sequentially arrayed signal that contains patterns that can be described in terms of statistical relations among language units. Previous research has suggested that a domain-general ability to learn structured sequential patterns may underlie language acquisition. To test this prediction, we examined the…

This study compared emotion perception accuracy between children with Asperger's syndrome (AS) and high-functioning autism (HFA). Thirty children were diagnosed with AS or HFA based on empirically supported diagnostic criteria and administered an emotion perception test consisting of facial expressions and tone of voice cues that varied in…

This 1-year longitudinal study examined early adolescents' (N=278, age 11-13 years) perceptions of their mother's behavior (affection, knowledge of child's activities, and psychological control) and of how they react to their mother (trust in mother, defiance, and debilitation) as predictors of self-esteem among peers. Perceived maternal affection…

We measured the increase in reading speed afforded by two currently available systems of coloured overlays: the "Intuitive Overlays," which provide a choice of 30 colours, and the "Eye Level Reading Rulers," which provide a choice of 5. Forty-eight pupils from a local authority primary school who reported experiencing symptoms of visual stress…

Autism has been associated with atypical face and configural processing, as indicated by the lack of a face inversion effect (better recognition of upright than inverted faces). We investigated whether such atypical processing was restricted to the face or extended to social information found in body postures. An inversion paradigm compared…

Most teachers' classroom experiences likely confirm that "fractions have always represented a considerable challenge for students, even into the middle grades" (Van de Walle 2004, p. 242). Because both movement and music enhance learning and retention of academic content (Jenson 2000), we developed a series of lessons that integrated kinesthetic…

Two experiments are reported that examine how manipulations of visual attention affect speakers' linguistic choices regarding word order, verb use and syntactic structure when describing simple pictured scenes. Experiment 1 presented participants with scenes designed to elicit the use of a perspective predicate ("The man chases the dog/The dog…

Purpose: This study investigated the acoustic characteristics of pediatric cochlear implant (CI) recipients' imitative production of rising speech intonation, in relation to the perceptual judgments by listeners with normal hearing (NH). Method: Recordings of a yes-no interrogative utterance imitated by 24 prelingually deafened children with a CI…

Young adults, originally tested as infants for their ability to process information as measured by selective attention to novelty (an operational definition of visual recognition memory), were revisited. A current estimate of IQ was obtained as well as a measure of academic achievement. Information processing ability at 6-12 months was predictive…

This study investigated the premise that disordered temporal order perception in retarded readers can be seen in the serial processing of both nonverbal auditory and visual information, and examined whether such information processing deficits relate to level of reading ability. The adult subjects included 20 in the dyslexic group, 12 in the…