Reading science has reached consensus that background knowledge is essential for reading comprehension. What remains an open question for the science of reading, however, is how and when this background knowledge ought to be developed. Teachers often include activities meant to activate background knowledge immediately prior to read-alouds.…

Educational video games can impose high cognitive demands on its users. Two studies were conducted to examine the cognitive process involved in playing an educational digital game. Study 1 examined the effects of users' working memory capacity and gaming expertise on attention and comprehension of the educational messages. The results showed that…

Competitive employment for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is important because this group is described as the most employable, yet least employed. Historically, females have been more likely to hire/work with individuals with disabilities than males but the gap between the sexes has been closing. A survey focusing on work…

Attention allocation in word learning may vary developmentally based on the novelty of the object. It has been suggested that children differentially learn verbs based on the novelty of the agent, but adults do not because they automatically infer the object's category and thus treat it like a familiar object. The current research examined…