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…

From a co-operative education class in an urban high school, 16 adolescent males were identified as impulsive and as high-risk based on their performance on the Matching Familiar Figures test and the advice of teachers and counselors. Students participated in 12 to 15 videotaped group problem-solving sessions (20-25 minutes in length) over a…

Research indicates that people have two distinct information processing modalities, one for verbal material and one for nonverbal material. The nonverbal mode is used for visual images and is characterized by creative and relatively undisciplined associations. The verbal mode deals with abstract stimuli and is restrained by logic and the need to…

This study investigates the role of labeling in developmental increases in picture recall. In two experiments, the memory for pictorial paired-associates of first graders or second graders, fourth graders and adults was evaluated by means of a study-test cued recall procedure. In Experiment 1, the stimulus presentation duration (on-time) and the…

This study investigated the relative effectiveness of verbal and visual modes of presentation on the learning of paired-associates by 64 3-year-old and 64 8-year-old children. Nine pictorial paired-associates and 9 verbal paired-associates were formed from pictures or names of familiar objects. At each age level, 8 male and 8 female subjects were…

Seventeen different versions of a film designed to teach the assembly of the breech block of the 40mm antiaircraft gun were tested on 2377 apprentice seamen in 1948. Each version was shown to at least 100 men, in groups of about 30, in an effort to evaluate the relative effects on learning of certain content and tempo characteristic s of specific…

The purpose of this pilot study was to test the hypothesis that the mean number of correct responses to pictorial items (line drawings) would be significantly higher than the mean number of correct responses to verbal (printed word) items. The items tested were selected from the items included in a posttest administered to 33 first grade students…

The purpose of this study was to investigate class differences in the responses of infants to tape recordings of mothers' and strangers' voices. Subjects were 10-month-old first-born Caucasian girls, 30 from middle class families and 30 from working class families. Stimuli presented through a speaker placed in front of the infant consisted of…

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)