Two experiments examined the role of perceptual complexity, object familiarity and form class cues on how children interpret novel adjectives and count nouns. Four-year-old children participated in a forced-choice match-to-target task in which an exemplar was named with a novel word and children were asked to choose another one that matched the…

Symmetry is an aspect of mathematics that is strongly linked to art and design. We chose to explore this connection in the context of a liberal arts mathematics course. Here we present a brief description of this course, including an outline of the curriculum and specific features of the course. We subsequently present the results of a study we…

This article reports on an exploratory investigation of the relationship between prior experience of formal instrumental music tuition (FIMT) and the process of collaborative computer-based music composition. The study linked a school in the UK with a school in Norway to engage in computer-mediated collaborative composition via e-mail.…

Based on the closeness of kinship relationships, a 4-layer household-based convoy is proposed for the study of intergenerational support exchanges. It first separates co-residing family members from non-coresiding family members with whom they have frequent contact and places them in the innermost and next-innermost circles of an individual's…

What does it take to become effective teachers of students of culturally, ethnically, linguistically, and racially diverse backgrounds? Based on research with teachers over the past several years, this paper discusses what it means to teach students of diverse backgrounds with heart, courage and conviction, and the implications of their practice…

This article reflects on what it means for teachers to put relationships with children as the priority in their practice. The authors focus on four themes that they believe are at the heart of a good relationship: (1) recognition; (2) familiarity; (3) respect; and (4) commitment. "Recognition" is acknowledging another person's presence and…

Field-based learning experiences are often used to increase the effectiveness of science curricula. However, time and financial limitations in public schools often hinder a teacher's ability to bring their students into the field for learning, despite increased demands to incorporate more science content into their curricula. In addition, federal…

Analyzes the familiarity or distance aspects as well as interest in topics of texts in the light of reader-text interaction. Results found that familiarity and interest with a topic of a text may influence the reading process in terms of evaluation, reader text interaction, and critical reading. (20 references) (Author/VWL)

This study examined bias in intelligibility judgments based on judges' personal familiarity with subjects. Four speech-delayed children (ages four and seven) were audiotaped at intervals during therapy, and intelligibility was assessed by their parents and unfamiliar adults. Mothers were significantly better at identifying words being spoken. An…

This study examined effects of familiarity with a speech target on coarticulation magnitude in 30 young children and 10 adults. Children exhibited a greater effect of a following vowel on the preceding fricative than did adults. Nonmeaningful production items exhibited greater effects of the vowel on the preceding fricative than did meaningful…

Thirty-two subjects (5 Broca's, 7 conduction, and 10 anomic aphasics and 10 normal controls) performed story retell and procedural discourse tasks containing familiar and unfamiliar topics, with familiar and unfamiliar listeners. Results indicated that topic familiarity significantly influenced verbal output in both normal and aphasic subjects.…

Administered a questionnaire focusing on examinees' computer familiarity to 90,000 Test of English as a Foreign Language test takers. A group of 1,200 low-computer-familiar and high-computer-familiar examinees' worked through a computer tutorial and a set of TOEFL test items. Concludes that no evidence exists of an adverse relationship between…

Evaluation of the role of concreteness and familiarity in the development of proverb comprehension in 180 students in grades 5, 8, and 11 found that both concreteness and familiarity as well as student age, influenced comprehension. Results support the "metasemantic" and the "language experience" hypotheses of language comprehension development.…

Investigates the preferences of elementary students for 10 songs selected from the Music Educators National Conference published list of songs, "Get America Singing...Again!," and how song familiarity may be related to song preference. Finds a consistent relationship between song familiarity and preference; grade level, gender, and…

The notion that non-human animals are capable of episodic memory is highly controversial. Here, we review recent behavioral work from our laboratory showing that the fundamental features of episodic memory can be observed in rats and that, as in humans, this capacity relies on the hippocampus. We also discuss electrophysiological evidence, from…