Impaired procedural learning has been suggested as a possible cause of developmental dyslexia (DD) and developmental language disorder (DLD). We evaluate this theory by performing a series of meta-analyses on evidence from the six procedural learning tasks that have most commonly been used to test this theory: the serial reaction time, Hebb…

Results of an experiment with children ages 3-11 years performing serial recall tasks suggest that it is not until about age 5 years that children's overt speech reaches a functional stage that would justify internalization. (Author/WY)

The ability of 4th, 6th, and 8th graders to use structures inherent in a list of permuted symbols, defined in terms of Piagetian theory, was investigated. Age differences were noted. Results supported the theoretical notion that environmental event structure facilitates learning. (ST)

Increase in probe accuracy following concurrent training was consistently greater than following serial training. (Authors)

Tested the ability of 19 older adults, given additional training in a mental imagination technique, to approach the performance of 16 younger adults on serial word recall tasks. Results indicated that negative age differences in older adults' performance were substantial, resistant to extensive practice, and applicable to all subjects. (BC)

Investigates the effects of acoustic similarity on memory span in 112 children four to 10 years of age. Acoustic similarity had progressively more effect on recall with increasing age. Implications for current theories of short-term memory and its development and for the use of acoustic similarity as an indicator of speech coding are discussed.…