A case study of a young Dutch man with intellectual and visual disabilities proved the viability and effectiveness of a self-operated instruction system with verbal cues in achieving independent task performance. The system consisted of a largely modified cassette recording which would stop automatically after each instruction. (Author/CR)

Purpose: Taking advantage of the rich morphological structure of Hebrew, the current article aims to examine whether age affects the processing of morphological forms through an investigation of 2 systematic morphological paradigms. Method: Forty-eight young and 48 old Hebrew speakers completed 2 experiments: the 1st investigated sensitivity to…

Ninety students in grades six to eight listened to or read written passages and then identified and corrected grammar and syntax errors. Students listening and receiving auditory feedback located more errors than those reading. Learning-disabled students and students matched on reading level identified fewer errors than did students matched on…

A study of 12- to 14-year-olds was conducted to investigate which components of spatial ability may be dependent on general cognitive functioning level and to compare possible differences in carrying out certain spatial operations in children of equal intelligence, but who are not specifically gifted for mathematics or visual arts. (MBR)

Investigates the effects of verbal and pictorial advance organizers on science text comprehension of children with high or low prior knowledge. Finds that verbal advance organizers assist text comprehension of children with strong prior knowledge, while the addition of a pictorial component aids comprehension of children with weak prior knowledge.…

The effects on compliance of two types of differential negative reinforcement (DNR) were studied with a five-year-old girl with moderate mental retardation and a history of severe disruption. Escape from instructional trials was either contingent on a communicative behavior or compliance. Behaviors improved with both interventions, but compliance…

This study of 78 prelingually deaf children (ages 6-13) who were educated orally found that children up to 9 years old seemed to process written words by means of visual codes. Older children tended to differentiate and preferred either a visual or speech-based strategy, with the latter associated with better reading performance. (Author/JDD)

This article describes the Descriptive Video Service (DVS), developed by WGBH-TV in Boston, Massachusetts, to provide narrated descriptions of the key visual elements of television programs without interfering with their audio or dialogue. The article discusses the history of DVS, broadcast tests, reactions to DVS, and the future of DVS.…

Despite the seminal studies of response differentiation by the method of successive approximation detailed in chapter 8 of "The Behavior of Organisms" (1938), B. F. Skinner never actually shaped an operant response by hand until a memorable incident of startling serendipity on the top floor of a flour mill in Minneapolis in 1943. That occasion…

Hemispheric processing of visually presented words and pictures was examined in third and seventh graders and college students. Pictorial or symbolic stimuli were presented singly to either the right or left visual hemifield and subjects had to decide whether the first stimulus in a pair matched the second stimulus. (JMB)

Results of four experiments show that developmental differences in elaborative conceptual processing at acquisition and retrieval contribute independently to developmental increases in recall. Item identification processes for both words and pictures constrain children's elaborative processing. The constraints are time limited. (RH)

An Amiga 500 microcomputer with a talking word processor was used by an Australian visually impaired elementary school pupil, to provide an alternative to braille in using text and writing. This article reviews the relevant literature, explores the challenges and limitations posed by the technology, and offers a case study of the student and her…

Consistent results of two experiments, in which undergraduate students were taught relatively technical native language vocabulary through keyword methods, showed that effectiveness of such methods depended upon whether meanings of words to be learned were abstract or concrete and whether comprehension was assessed immediately or after a delay.…

This study compared the instructional effectiveness of both cued and noncued pictures and cued and noncued text; investigated whether a combination of pictorial and textual cues is the most effective strategy for low and average reading ability students; and compared average and low reading subjects using noncueing and cueing methods. (MBR)

Students' perceptions of sincerity, dominance, and positivity were measured by pairing happy, angry, surprised and sad faces of teachers with teachers' comments characterized as positive or negative and dominant or submissive. Clear effects of facial-verbal combinations emerged; there were no sex differences other than in perceptions of sincerity.…