Educational practice does not, for the most part, rely on research findings. Instead, there's a preference for relying on our intuitions about what's best for learning. But relying on intuition may be a bad idea for teachers and learners alike. This accessible guide helps teachers to integrate effective, research-backed strategies for learning…

Thirty years ago, when personal computers were first becoming available in homes and schools, a large group of primary school-age children were asked to share their attitudes about computers, their conceptions regarding how computers function, and their beliefs concerning computers' agency. The researchers wanted to gather baseline data regarding…

"Autism at-a-Glance" is designed for high school staff members supporting students on the autism spectrum, as well as family members of adolescents on the autism spectrum. This issue focuses on understanding and improving the communication skills of adolescents on the autism spectrum. The content specifically targets the needs of…

In recent decades, a growing number of children have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a condition characterized by social interaction deficits and language impairment. Yet the precise nature of the disorder's impact on language development is not well understood, in part because of the language variability among children across…

Because idioms are omnipresent in the authentic language students are exposed to, to successfully comprehend and produce natural language, learners of a second or foreign language need to possess a good knowledge of idioms and competence in idiom use. This paper examines the approaches to teaching and learning idioms. A discussion of the…

Purpose: Children with specific language impairment (SLI) demonstrate significant language impairments despite normal-range hearing and nonverbal IQ. Many of these children also show marked deficits in working memory (WM) abilities. However, the theoretical and clinical characterization of the association between WM and language limitations in SLI…

This qualitative analysis explored children's and adults' experiences with adoption. We used phenomenological methodology and individually interviewed 25 participants and included adoptive mothers and fathers, and their children, each adopted before 18 months of age. Two research questions guided the data analysis: (a) What are children's and…

Examines the nature of comprehension, specifically in the area of reading, and offers some techniques for teaching comprehension. (FL)

Provides a rationale for using television as a means of instruction and presents a model for capitalizing on television as a connection to reading. Includes a sample task sheet. (TJ)

Discusses the importance of world knowledge in the comprehension of metaphor. Examines difficulties encountered by students when their cultural schemata are insufficient or inappropriate to ensure comprehension. Offers pedagogical solutions to these problems. (DMM)

Skills development in reading should be balanced with reading, listening, and talking activities which focus on content and themes, so that reading comprehension is also developed. (SJL)

Learning disabled children fail to ask for clarification when they do not understand a speaker's message. Failure is due to factors inherent in the children themselves, such as difficulty with question forms, inability to monitor comprehension, and fear as well as poor instructional techniques. Specific teaching strategies can help improve the…

Literature on metacognition, particularly studies by A. L. Brown and J. H. Flavell, are reviewed, and it is argued that a learning disabled adolescent may become a more active learner by being taught a system of strategies for learning. Comprehension skills, motivation, and metacognitive skills are interdependent. (Author/CL)

Five groups of subjects (n=54, ages 15-43) were assigned a repair strategy to use after misperceiving a sentence through lipreading. Strategies included asking the talker to repeat a sentence, rephrasing it, simplifying it, saying an important keyword, and speaking two sentences. Compared to controls, subjects demonstrated significantly greater…

Reports on students' attitudes toward reading science during an experimental study that investigated ways to increase comprehension of technical material. Describes the procedure, results, conclusions, applications, and implication. (RT)