The study used the semantic strategy of stories linking to-be-remembered items and a serial-recall requirement with 27 educable mentally retarded adolescents. In comparison to control subjects, Ss recalled more in the early trials of original learning, but retention after eight months was comparable for the two conditions. (Author/DB)

This study involving 38 normally achieving fourth and fifth grade children confirmed previous studies indicating that both spatial-simultaneous (in which perceived stimuli are totally available at one point in time) and verbal-successive (information is presented in serial order) cognitive processing are important in normal learning. (DB)

Daily practice for 15-20 minutes of repeating series of numbers resulted in improvement in auditory, sequential memory for five 13-year-olds with moderate learning difficulties. Subjects in the control and placebo group also demonstrated progress. Experimental Subjects demonstrated greater increases over a two-year period. (CL)

Normal-hearing elementary school-age children (N=180) performed rote sequencing language tasks, named colors, and told their birthday. For the six automatic and semiautomatic expressive language tasks, maturational trends were noted for all observations. Central tendency values and standard deviations by grades for the six tasks are reported.…

Dominant theories of implicit learning assume that implicit learning merely involves the learning of chunks of adjacent elements in a sequence. In the experiments presented here, participants implicitly learned a nonlocal rule, thus suggesting that implicit learning can go beyond the learning of chunks. Participants were exposed to a set of…

An experiment on sequence procedures for presenting text materials to pupils demonstrated that web sequencing (presenting concepts as related parts of a network) resulted in better test performance than linear sequencing. Information processing strategies used by pupils did not influence either the sequence of information presentation or test…

A structural analysis of skills taught by 49 parents to their preschool children indicated that individual characteristics affect initial prerequisite-skill performance directly and superordinate-skill learning indirectly through their impact on prerequisite skills. (JMB)

Contrasts sequential and relational processing manipulations of passages with manipulations which focus on individual lexical items and the propositions in which they are embedded. Finds recall to be superior when readers use sequential and relational processing during performance of individual item-specific lexical processing. (RS)

Investigated effects of cognitive learning style on academic performance in two university computer applications courses. Discusses use of the Gregorc Style Delineator to collect learning style information over a four-year period. Results indicated a significant effect of learning style on academic performance, and that sequential learners…

In experiments on individual differences in learning, knowledge prerequisites and learning strategies have been shown to be important factors. The author questions whether learning optimization should rely on direct measures from outside the learner or should elucidate and strengthen the individual's capacity for learning decisions. He proposes to…

The LARC (Listening and Reading Comprehension) Program, an experiential based story grammar approach to listening and reading comprehension is described, and a pilot study of its effectiveness with communication handicapped children is reviewed. The LARC framework translates children's own recent experiences into sequenced story episodes which are…

Several ways of structuring the early trials of a complex concept formation task were compared. Training trials were divided into two segments: (1) an asynchronous segment with one relevant and one irrelevant cue held constant while one relevant and one irrelevant cue varied and (2) a synchronous segment with all cues free to vary. The…

This report is one in a series of reference documents designed to assist those who are directly involved in the revision and improvement of content standards, as well as teachers who use standards and benchmarks to guide everyday instruction. Reports in the series provide information about how benchmarks might best appear in a sequence of…

The study evaluated the importance to successful lipreading of a specific visual memory for mouth shape sequences in 23 hearing impaired children (11 to 16 years old) and 16 adults. Results suggested the use of sequence-memory training with articulatory shapes for lipreading instruction. (Author/SB)

Examined implicit learning ability in 6- and 10-year olds and adults as assessed by a serial reaction-time task, along with retention of knowledge after one week and explicit knowledge developed by children. Found no age-related difference in serial reaction-time performance, consistent with the idea that implicit learning abilities may be…