The study involving 85 sixth through ninth graders tested J. Torgesen's hypothesis that learning disabled (LD) children's performance deficits occur as a result of a "passive" approach to tasks rather than a cognitive processing deficit as assumed by other existing definitions. LD students were matched with nonhandicapped peers and administered…

The effect of stimulus novelty, an attentional variable, on learning set acquisition was investigated. Learning set (LS) acquisition refers to an improvement in performance across a series of problems which have a common basis of solution. The design of this study involved two groups, one in which the positive stimulus on Trial 2 involved the…

IN A REPRODUCTION TASK WHICH INCLUDED INSTANCES OF SEVERAL SCHEMATA MIXED TOGETHER, SUBJECTS LEARNED TO DISTINGUISH AMONG THE SCHEMATA WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE OF RESULTS. A BEST FITTING EQUATION DESCRIBING PERFORMANCE AS A FUNCTION OF NUMBER OF REPRODUCTION TRIALS ACCURATELY PREDICTED LEARNING WITH NEW SUBJECTS AND PATTERNS RANDOMLY SAMPLED FROM A…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of errorless discrimination training in teaching young retarded children to pair a given letter symbol with a specific sound. A secondary objective was to determine the extent to which the letter-sound discrimination would generalize to the skill areas of omitting the desired sound when…

In this study of errorless learning a procedure is tested which allows the subject himself to adjust the speed at which a supplementary stimulus aid is withdrawn. A standard match-to-sample apparatus with 1 sample window above and 4 matching (response) windows below was used. Tokens were delivered for correct responses and the correct matching…

The first part of this paper briefly describes two studies concerned with cognitive processes in children. One study examined the ability of Kindergarten and First Grade children to apply a simple rule of logical inference in order to solve a two-object discrimination problem. Specifically, the rule was of the form "if A, then not B." A second…

The free play of 5 black preschool Head Start children was observed. The variables manipulated in the study were delayed instructions and reinforcement for play with selected toys, and specific versus general instructions; the correspondence between the adult's instructions and reinforcement to the children's play was assessed. The data indicated…

The purpose of these 2 experiments was to determine whether sequential response pattern behavior is affected by partial reinforcement in the same way as other behavior systems. The first experiment investigated the partial reinforcement extinction effects (PREE) in a sequential concept learning task where subjects were required to learn a…

Examined was the relationship between dependency behavior and learning in educable mentally retarded (EMR) children. Population included 120 subjects equally divided by sex into two groups of retardates and normals and subdivided into socially reinforced and non-reinforced Ss. The task measured overt or instrumental dependency (ID). Electronic…

A specially designed discrimination learning task was used to investigate whether the performance of kindergarten and first grade children could be improved through explicit training with a simple hypothesis-testing strategy. (Author/MP)

This research investigates frequency and type of contact young children have had with elderly persons. It also examines the relationship between this contact and children's frequency of contact with elderly persons and their ability to identify the elderly. (Author)

The effects of the presence of an attachment object upon preschoolers' emotionality and discrimination performance in a novel learning situation were evaluated. Blanket-attached and blanket-nonattached children were assigned to one of three task conditions: (1) mother present, (2) blanket present, (3) no familiar object present. (Author/SB)