Analysis of the conceptions of spatial relations, size comparisons, and gesture imitations of 16 autistic children (ages 6-14 years) with IQs over 70 indicated an inability to acquire concepts of size comparison and spatial relationships through verbal instructions, suggesting a cognitive deficit of impaired symbolic-representational functioning.…

Results of a study comparing the outcome of a reinforcement (do only) procedure with correspondence (say/do) training indicated no apparent differences in generalization between two groups of mentally retarded adults (N=12). Rule-governed behavior, rather than verbal regulation of behavior, may best account for behavior changes seen in…

An ambiguity in Gagne and Briggs' model of instructional design was investigated using treatments which contrasted verbal expository and guided discovery forms of presentation. Analysis found the guided discovery method as effective as the expository method on all measures. Implications are discussed. (Author/MT)

Examines whether, after a single reading, the recall of text elements depends on the length of the passage. Results show more detail was remembered 23 hours later for short passages than for long. Concludes that negative effects of passage length on test performance were due in part to acquisition processes rather than retrieval. (EKN)

Seven mentally retarded adolescents received either verbal or nonverbal training on a shape-sorting task within a multiple baseline design. Both training sequences resulted in the successful acquisition of the target performance, but only the verbal training sequence facilitated generalization of performance to a novel shape and to a new…

The primary purpose of this research was to investigate the short- and long-term retention effects resulting from training students to organize and to classify information to be acquired. (Author)

Describes a study of the recall of narrative prose. Serial structure at first influenced which elements were remembered, but as the Ss remembered more, the story grammar structure became the dominant influence over the elements remembered. (Author/RM)

Three experiments investigated a characteristic of the propositions that underlie sentences. For some of the sentences tested, the same concepts occurred repeatedly across the underlying propositions; for others, concepts were seldom repeated. Repetitions were shown to facilitate sentence processing. (Author/RM)

Discusses the interaction of age and sex factors on consistency of recognition of 71 Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test pictures by preschool children. (TO)

The present study tested the generality of the disparity between interpair and intrapair conditions by employing a different form of semantic relatedness, viz., bilingual. (Author)

Study examined the effects of the variables of list length and pronunciation instructions on performance in the verbal discrimination and two category classification tasks and found that the effects of these variables on the two tasks were quite comparable. (Author)

The antecedents of verbal behavior, together with the teaching skills of the adult linguistic community, probably constitute all the necessary bases for language acquisition. As they seemed to be sufficient for the explanation of all the known phenomena, an assumption of an innate linguistic language acquisition device was rejected as superfluous.…

This study dealt with the question of white versus black superiority in learning, viewing such differences in sociocultural terms. (Author)

Results confirm an earlier finding that experimentally induced rehearsal facilitates recall. (Authors/CS)