Onomatopoeia are disproportionately high in number in infants' early words compared to adult language. Studies of infant language perception have proposed an iconic advantage for onomatopoeia, which may make them easier for infants to learn. This study analyses infants' early word production to show a phonological motivation for onomatopoeia in…

Learning to read two scripts at a young age is a demanding task. This study aims to develop games for building fundamental code-related emergent literacy skills among biscriptal preschoolers. We developed five games and tested them on a sample of 102 Chinese kindergarteners. The participants were aged 4 to 5 years and were learning English as a…

Purpose: We aim to identify the possible sources for age-related differences in the perception of emotion in speech, focusing on the distinct roles of semantics (words) and prosody (tone of speech) and their interaction. Method: We implement the Test for Rating of Emotions in Speech (Ben-David, Multani, Shakuf, Rudzicz, & van Lieshout, 2016).…

The aim of this study was to determine the preferred cognitive learning patterns among secondary students and their effect on their achievement in physics. To achieve the objective of the study, the researcher designed a scale of cognitive learning patterns (VAK) that consisted of (16) items, and after verifying its validity and reliability, it…

Sculpting representations of human organs out of modeling clay is an acknowledged method of teaching anatomical structures. Because of its potential to provide detailed spatial information, stereoscopic imagery can be understood to function as a suitable template for such sculpting tasks. Currently, it is unknown whether the advantages of…

In learning language, children must discover how to interpret the linguistic significance of phonetic variation. On some accounts, receptive phonology is grounded in perceptual learning of phonetic categories from phonetic distributions drawn over the infant's sample of speech. On other accounts, receptive phonology is instead based on phonetic…

This theoretical paper introduces a new way to view and characterize learning astronomy. It describes a framework, based on results from empirical data, analyzed through standard qualitative research methodology, in which a theoretical model for a vital competency of learning astronomy is proposed: "reading the sky," a broad description…

This study of children from two U. S. states examined associations among four cognitive and academic skills: executive function (EF), visuo-motor integration, mathematics assessed with applied problems, and letter-word knowledge. Before (T1) and after (T2) kindergarten, children (N=555) were assessed using the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) EF…

A considerable body of research indicates that children's executive function (EF) skills and related school readiness constructs are important for early learning and long-term academic success. This review focuses on EF and a related construct, motor skills with a focus on visuo-motor integration, as being foundational for learning, and describes…

This study tested whether individuals with autism spectrum conditions (n = 23) show enhanced discrimination of acoustic differences that signal a linguistic contrast (i.e., /g/ versus /k/ as in "goat" and "coat") and whether they process such differences in a less categorical fashion as compared with 23 IQ-matched typically…

Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental disorder manifested in deficits in reading and spelling skills that is consistently associated with difficulties in phonological processing. Dyslexia is genetically transmitted, but its manifestation in a particular individual is thought to depend on the interaction of epigenetic and environmental factors. We adopt…

The present study aimed to investigate early interrelationships between temperament, short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM), while also relating them to incipient anxious traits in a sample of 4-7-year-olds. Preschoolers were evaluated using verbal and visuospatial STM and WM tasks, while parental reports were used to assess children's…

Background: Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) portray motor coordination and perceptual difficulties which can hamper daily activity and academic task execution. Aim: This study examined the association between DCD and academic performance, and explored which perceptual and motor coordination skills had the largest…

Infants are curious learners who drive their own cognitive development by imposing structure on their learning environment as they explore. Understanding the mechanisms by which infants structure their own learning is therefore critical to our understanding of development. Here we propose an explicit mechanism for intrinsically motivated…

This essay poses the question of the role that literary knowledge plays in subject English. It thus engages with current debates, largely prompted by Michael Young's call to 'bring knowledge back in', about the need to restore academic knowledge as the basis of the school curriculum. We take issue with Young's understanding of knowledge, arguing…