Purpose: Compared to children with typical development, children with dyslexia, developmental language disorder (DLD), or both often demonstrate working memory deficits. It is unclear how pervasive the deficits are or whether the deficits align with diagnostic category. The purpose of this study was to determine whether different working memory…

Executive function is foundational for cognitive development. Previous research has shown both gross motor skills and physical activity to be related to executive function. However, evidence for these relationships in the preschool years, as well as in low- and middle-income countries is lacking. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the…

The main purpose of our study was to examine whether autonomous training through the use of technologies could be associated with improvements in selective attention, visuospatial short-term memory and visuospatial processing in students with Down Syndrome (DS). In addition, our study aimed to analyse how the improvements in selective attention…

Mnemonics represent a diverse group of research-based instructional methods with wide application for middle school teachers and students. Teachers can model how to use mnemonics and infuse them in their instruction. Students can use mnemonics as a study skills memory prompt in any class. Due to their potential as a highly effective instructional…

Executive function (EF) is related to reading. However, there is a lack of clarity around (a) the relative contribution of different components of EF to different reading components (word reading, fluency, comprehension), and (b) how EF operates in the context of known strong language predictors (e.g., components of the simple view of reading or…

We examined whether akshara knowledge, phonological awareness, phonological memory, and RAN predict variability in word and nonword reading skills in Grade 1-4 children (N = 200) learning to read Sinhala. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that akshara knowledge had the strongest unique association with both word and nonword reading accuracy…

Agents are important for structuring memory in adulthood. However, it is unclear whether this "social memory bias" stems from a reliance on agents in verbal narratives, or whether it reflects more fundamental preverbal memory processes. By testing 9-month-old infants in a non-verbal eye-tracking paradigm, we were able to effectively…

Clinical and preclinical studies that have examined the neurobiology of persistent fear memory in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have focused on the medial prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala. Sensory systems, the periaqueductal gray (PAG), and midline thalamic nuclei have been implicated in fear and extinction memory, but whether…

The present research set out to investigate the effect of working memory on English reading comprehension of Chinese middle school students. To do so, we recruited 150 Chinese students at grade 8 and conducted two studies. Study 1 examined the predictive power of working memory on the performance of English reading comprehension, grammar, and…

We explored the potential of a robotics application in education as a measurement tool of child executive functioning skills. Sixty-five kindergarteners received assignments to go through a maze with a programmable robot, the Bee-Bot. Via observation we quantified how they solved these tasks. Their performance was successfully aggregated into a…

This article offers a critique of consumer culture that draws on Augustine's vision of human consciousness, exploring consumerism's formative effects on the memory, attention, and imagination of consumers. Drawing on William Cavanaugh's analysis of consumers' disposition of detachment, it explains how consumer culture distorts memory, attention,…

Inference making is fundamental to the construction of a coherent mental model of a text. We examined how vocabulary and verbal working memory relate to inference development concurrently and longitudinally in 4- to 9-year-olds. Four hundred and twenty prekindergartners completed oral assessments of inference making, vocabulary breadth, vocabulary…

Confidence and its accuracy have been most commonly examined in domains such as general knowledge and learning, with less study of other domains, such as applied knowledge and problem solving. Monitoring accuracy in real-world competencies may depend on characteristics of the domain. In this study, we examined whether monitoring accuracy, both…

Low working memory (WM) capacity has been linked to poor academic performance and problem behavior. Availability of easy-to-administer screening tests would facilitate early detection of WM deficits. This study investigated the psychometric properties of the Working Memory Power Test for Children (WMPT) in 170 Australian schoolchildren (8½-11…

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is a change in liking of neutral conditioned stimuli (CS) following pairings with positive or negative stimuli (unconditioned stimulus, US). A dissociation has been reported between US expectancy and CS evaluation in extinction learning: When CSs are presented alone subsequent to CS-US pairings, participants cease to…