This paper investigates the determinants and malleability of noncognitive skills. Using data on boys from the National Education Longitudinal Survey, I focus on youth behavior in the classroom as a measure of noncognitive skills. I find that student behavior during adolescence is persistent. The variation in behavior can be attributed to…

Objective: The authors analyze the occurrence of grade repetition and inattention in children diagnosed with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). Method: The participant group consisted of 310 patients with NF1 and a control group of 242 individuals. The number of grade repetitions for each participant during his or her time in elementary, middle, and…

Debate continues over the hypothesis that children with language or literacy difficulties have a genuine auditory processing deficit. Several recent studies have reported deficits in frequency discrimination (FD), but it is unclear whether these are genuine perceptual impairments or reflective of the comorbid attentional problems that exist in…

An attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) student's impulsivity and inattentiveness were interfering with his learning and that of his classmates. Prior to experimental intervention, a simple event recording was conducted over nine class periods to determine the frequency of this subject's impulsivity and inattentiveness. For ease of…

Thirty grade 4 subjects were individually tested on a digit span test of working memory capacity (Case and Kurland) and the Reading Span Test (Daneman and Carpenter). The Reading Span Test was administered using sentences at a grade 2, grade 4, and grade 6 reading level. It was predicted that, as the decoding demands of the stimulus sentences in…

A study was conducted to determine if attentional difficulties would be found in reading disabled children and to discover if increasing the complexity of a task would result in a relative decrease in the performance of the children. Twelve dyslexic boys, aged eight and nine, and 12 normal subjects similar in age and IQ participated in the study.…

Sustained attention and inhibitory control of 15 nonhyperactive, learning disabled (LD) boys, 15 hyperactive but not LD boys, and 15 normal boys (11-12 years old) were studied, on teacher ratings of impulse control in the classroom and testing results. Coming to attention, decision making, sustained attention, and attention-concentration were…

Evaluated with 8 preschool severely hearing impaired children was whether use of the Tactile Auditory Visual Feedback Unit would facilitate speech and language development. (LC)

Two studies are described which were conducted at the University of Kansas Center for Research on the Influence of Television on Children to evaluate the effects of form and content independently on the social behavior of young children. In both studies, preschool children were observed during an unstructured play session in a laboratory room…

A FOURTH PROGRESS REPORT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF A BEGINNING READING SKILLS PROGRAM USING THE EDISON RESPONSIVE ENVIRONMENTS INSTRUMENT IS PRESENTED. THE ACQUISITION OF A SEQUENCE OF COMPLEX BEGINNING READING SKILLS IS EXAMINED. MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES ARE DISCUSSED. THE FOLLOWING HYPOTHESES WERE TESTED IN FIELD STUDIES--(1) THE EFFECTS OF TWO TYPES…

Twenty-eight moderately and profoundly retarded children (9 to 17 years old) on one unit of a center for the developmentally disabled were taught a nonvocal symbol system based on that developed by D. Premack. Children varied in speech level from totally nonverbal to some who had simple language skills. The symbol system used a behavioral approach…

An experiment was performed to assess if, and how, attention to a problem solving task varies with anxiety level. It was hypothesized that high anxious children would glance away from a task more often than less anxious children, in light of research literature which suggests that high anxious children are inattentive to tasks in order to avoid…

Three experiments were conducted to examine the effects of providing extrinsic rewards for engaging in an activity on children's subsequent intrinsic interest in that activity. In each study, preschool children were asked to engage in an activity of initial intrinsic interest in individual experimental sessions. The children agreed to engage in…