Two firsthand accounts from verbal high-functioning individuals with autism (a 27-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy and his parents) are presented. Five salient themes are identified: sensory processing, memory, stereotypical behaviors, social interaction, and empathy. Multichanneled sensory processing appeared in both subjects as did a detailed…

At the University of Queensland (Australia), second-language instruction techniques involving principles of sensory training are being used experimentally. The method promotes sensory integration of speech events through auditory, visual, and kinesthetic memory. (MSE)

This review of literature on infant habituation and recognition memory performance as predictors of later IQ concludes that the level of prediction is (1) substantial; (2) higher for at-risk than nonrisk children; and (3) not higher than the level of predictions based on parental education and socioeconomic status. (MDM)

College students whose judgments of others were more gender stereotyped recalled more traditional pictures portraying men in masculine activities and were more likely to cluster recalled items in gender categories than students with less stereotyped judgments. Results with 100 males and 74 females support J. T. Spence's gender identity theory.…

Forty-five gifted children, ages 11-17, were tested with the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement. Results indicated 18 of 20 correlations between the area and composite scores were significant. The Stanford-Binet Short-Term Memory standard age score mean was lower than other scores' means. (Author/JDD)

Examines the sensitivity of second-language (L2) working memory (ability to store and process information simultaneously) to differences in reading skills among advanced L2 learners. Subjects with larger L2 working memory capacities scored higher on measures of L2 reading skills, but no correlation was found between reading and passive short-term…

Examines the psychological basis of hypermedia as a medium for learning, surveys the characteristics of current hypermedia systems, and suggests ways to make hypermedia systems more valuable as instructional environments. Highlights include parallels between human memory and hypermedia architectures; and hypermedia as knowledge presentation,…

Semantic context and keyword treatment conditions facilitated recall of a German word to fit a German context sentence on immediate and delayed tests for 140 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students taking first- or second-year German. For second-year students, context treatment facilitated recall of an English word when given the German word.…

This study of 94 college undergraduates, including 24 with a reading disability, found that speech perception was strongly related to 3 of 4 phonological variables, including short-term and long-term auditory memory and phoneme segmentation, which were in turn strongly related to reading. Nonverbal temporal processing was not related to any…

Two case studies are presented of preverbal sexual abuse in which children later gave detailed accounts of their abuse, indicating that their memories were still intact despite lacking sufficient language to report the abuse when it occurred. A series of issues about preverbal abuse are discussed while integrating cognitive-developmental research…

This study compared 112 younger and older adult monolingual English speakers and English/Spanish bilingual speakers on measures of auditory perception and memory span. The results revealed no age difference in auditory memory span in English but found that both older and younger bilinguals performed better than monolinguals on these tasks.…

In a group of advanced student interpreters, recall of short stories after simultaneous interpretation from their first (L1) into their second (L2) language, and vice versa, was significantly worse than recall of similar stories after listening. Memory span for digits presented in L1 and L2 was significantly poorer following simultaneous…

Young infants remember their prior experiences for relatively long periods with surprising specificity, and even seemingly forgotten memories can often be reactivated to further protract retention. These reactivations can be programmed in ways that optimize cumulative learning and retention, based on the principles embodied in the time-window…

Two experiments examined preschool, first, and third grade students for the effects of motoric activities on memory performance. Findings for the first experiment revealed that, although organizational differences affected memory performance, the drawing of configurations enhanced the effect of unitary organization. In the second experiment,…

Three experiments involving 85 learning-disabled (LD) children and 101 non-LD children investigated whether memory difficulties of LD children may be attributable in part to executive processing. Results suggest that LD readers may suffer from executive processing deficiencies, although they do not rule out effects of language-specific processes.…