This study examined the interaction between working memory and language comprehension in children with specific language impairment (SLI), focusing on the function of the central executive component and its interaction with the phonological loop (A. D. Baddeley, 1986) in complex working memory tasks. Thirteen children with SLI and 13 age-matched…

In a sample of 92 children aged 6-13 years this study investigates the normal developmental change in the relation between executive functioning (EF) and the core behavioural symptoms associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (hyperactivity/impulsivity and inattention) as well as symptoms often co-occurring with childhood…

The effect of "temperament" in a school-like environment was evaluated for 30 children with mental retardation, 30 children with autism, and 30 typical children (all groups with a mean mental age of 23 to 24 months). Five-minute videotapes of each child attempting to complete a puzzle were viewed and scored by raters on the University of…

Attentional processes are said to be central to children's academic learning, yet theories of attention may not be useful in defining and measuring such learning. A formal survey of 35 preschool teachers indicated that teacher definitions were either vague and intuitive, based on many observable child behaviors (like eye orientation and being…

A study was conducted to examine the influence of visual complexity in a televised presentation on attention and learning among young children. (Visual complexity is defined as a composite variable that assesses the number of perceptual elements in a visual display and accounts for the extent of movement or activity in a scene.) Forty-eight…

Five experiments examined the developmental relation between attention to target and context information and target memory among second and fifth graders and college adults. Results show that when the context is meaningfully related to target information, adults are less selective than children and are more likely to attend to context information.…

How do students who are learning English as an additional language (EAL) participate in classroom mathematics? To investigate this question, I collected recordings of primary school EAL students as they worked with peers on a mathematics classroom task. Drawing on theoretical and methodological work in discursive psychology (Edwards, 1997), I…

A cue-target visual attention task was administered to 25 children (ages 10-12) with dyslexia. Results showed a general pattern of slower responses in the children with dyslexia compared to controls. Subjects also had longer reaction times in the short and long cue-target interval conditions (covert and overt shift of attention). (Contains…

Article describes behavior rating scales and the difficulties in the use of cutoff scores to identify students as Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Also described are how problems with interobserver agreement hamper the validity of rating scales and the subsequent conclusions that can be drawn about students' behavior. (RJM)

Two studies evaluated the effects of within-task and competing visual stimulation on the mathematics performance and behavior of 17 children (ages 8-14) with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Results indicate the same high within-task simulation that enhanced student performance and reduced off-task behavior was effective only when…

The influence of story schema development on children's attention to television and memory of program content was examined in a study that involved two separate testing sessions. The expectation was that maximum effort would be given to program elements most central to comprehension of a television story and that this allocation strategy would be…

Room management is described as a behavioral strategy developed in Great Britain and designed to increase the percentage of time that handicapped children are engaged in independent, constructive activity. Used with severely multiply handicapped children, least responsive children were unlikely to be engaged unless receiving individual attention.…

Examines the engaged rates of children in kindergarten to fourth grade for differences and makes some assessment of attention span as it relates to engaged rate and achievement. (HOD)

How students' ability group assignments affect their attention spans is examined. Data were gathered from videotaped lessons of first-grade reading groups. Assignment to a low-ability group had a strong negative effect on student attentiveness, suggesting that classroom factors are important in shaping student behavior. (Author/IS)

This article discusses the interaction of infant social and cognitive development, and presents preliminary findings from a longitudinal study of infants with and without Down syndrome. Evidence suggests that the development of triadic (person-person-world) social interactions may be affected by limited information processing capacities in infants…