Sixteen moderately mentally retarded children, aged 9-13, were trained in sight words by manipulating pictorial stimuli (fading versus nonfading) in relationship to the word stimulus location (superimposition versus juxtaposition of picture and word), to orient the learner's attention to the word. Subjects who were trained using superimposition…

Investigates the additive memory effect of two modes of presenting information to elementary children on the retention of both images and words. Children represented more information in pictorial than in verbal form. The visual-verbal treatment group scored higher on most of both verbal and pictorial responses than the visual treatment group.…

Describes a study of three infants whose parents presented vocal models for the infants to imitate. Parents presented vocal models both with and without social praise. Infants showed systematic increases in matching after praise was introduced. Nonmatching vocalizations did not increase with introduction of praise. Findings demonstrate generalized…

Six experiments involving 192 infants and 1 experiment with 16 college students examined sensitivity to acoustic correlates of phrasal units in English. A basic finding is that nine-month-old infants are sensitive to acoustic markers that correspond to major phrasal units, a sensitivity that develops after six months. (SLD)

The task was to survey an area of a planet's surface to identify the presence of various geological features such as a trench, ridge, or basin. Students who received prior pictorial representations of features performed more accurately than students who did not, but there was no significant effect for including verbal statements about strategies…

In this article, the author discusses two strategies--visual cues (modeling) and verbal cues (short, accurate phrases) which are related to teaching motor skills in maximizing learning in physical education classes. Both visual and verbal cues are strong influences in facilitating and promoting day-to-day learning. Both strategies reinforce…

Large and reliable laterality effects have been found using a dichotic target detection task in a recent experiment using word stimuli pronounced with an emotional component. The present study tested the hypothesis that the magnitude and reliability of the laterality effects would increase with the removal of the emotional component and variations…

This study was designed to assess the potential benefits of using spatial auditory warning signals in a simulated driving task. In particular, the authors assessed the possible facilitation of responses (braking or accelerating) to potential emergency driving situations (the rapid approach of a car from the front or from behind) seen through the…

This paper presents Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior as a framework for understanding language acquisition in children with autism. We describe Skinner's analysis of pure and impure verbal operants and illustrate how this analysis may be applied to the design of communication training programs. The picture exchange communication system…

Sixty-four subjects were presented pictures and later asked to draw them or provide one-word descriptions to test the hypothesis that decreased retention effectiveness occurs because images stored in long-term memory are accessible only through their verbal labels. Recall of pictures was significantly greater than recall of words. (Author/PN)

Phonological coding in printed-word recognition in English was studied by examining the use made of syllable information by skilled and less skilled readers in the second grade and by adults. The results are discussed in terms of an interactive model of reading. (Author/PN)

Effects of mothers' contingent and non-contingent vocal stimulation on vocalization and looking behavior was investigated in 10 Down's Syndrome infants. Neither condition increased infant vocalization but results suggest that looking behavior may be an important indication of competence in pre-linguistic social communication for developmentally…

This partial replication study of Kail and Siegel (1977), conducted in Ghana and Scotland among boys and girls with 4 and 7 years of education, found no sex differences in relative recall of letters and positions. Evidence that verbal and spatial information is not always processed independently was found. Limitations of intracultural research as…

The keyword method of foreign language learning was adapted for young children learning Spanish. Rather than constructing visual images relating to the word pair, the children generated sentences. Both second- and fifth-grade students experienced large vocabulary gains. (Author/GDC)

A multirate mathematical model is presented to support the hypothesis that different types of information are lost from a memory trace at different rates. The model is validated by two experiments assessing the retention of pictures and of sentences at three different delays by cued recall. (Author/CP)