This study examined the relationship between auditory, visual, touch, and oral sensory dysfunction in autism and their relationship to multisensory dysfunction and severity of autism. The Sensory Profile was completed on 104 persons with a diagnosis of autism, 3 to 56 years of age. Analysis showed a significant correlation between the different…

Young children do science exploration and observation every day in their play. They spontaneously engage in parts of the scientific inquiry process--wondering, asking a question, planning how to answer the question, documenting their work, thinking about what happened, and sharing their results with others. Conducting an entire experiment is…

A study sought to ascertain the effect, if any, exposure to different temperatures would have on an individual's ability to discriminate between different tactile stimuli. Ten young adult males were repeatedly subjected to emersion of their dominant hand in water ranging in temperature from ice, to 105 degrees Fahrenheit (F), in increments of 15…

Sixty-four 8-year-old children were divided into fast and slow learner groups and trained on a tactile simultaneous discrimination task. Selective attention was measured in terms of percentage contact time per trial to the relevant dimension. Inter- and intracouplings per trial were also recorded. A multivariate analysis was carried out to examine…

In two experiments, forty 26-week-old infants were repeatedly exposed to an object and were then shown an object that was different from the original object in color, shape and/or texture. Results showed that looking and manipulation increased for the novel shape and texture objects and looking increased for the novel color object. (Author/JMB)

Active touch, passive touch with a moving object, and passive touch with a still object were examined developmentally with 192 subjects in first, third, and fifth grades and college. (Author/JMB)

Significant improvements in scanning and processing times, attention deployment strategies, and response accuracy on haptic and visual discrimination tasks coupled with increases in reflectivity demonstrate the effectiveness, durability, and generalizability of haptic training with 12 communications disordered/neurologically impaired elementary…

Telephone interviews were conducted with 12 experienced blind adults to determine the strategies and techniques they employed in locating point, linear, and areal symbols and in following a track on a pseudo-map. (GW)

Three experiments were conducted which tested the orosensory acuity (or cutaneous sense acuity) and form discrimination via tactual perception of congenitally deaf secondary school students. (Author)

A six-month-old infant who can remove a transparent cloth from his hand when it is covered after he grasps a toy may not be able to remove an opaque cover. Alternative interpretations of the phenomenon, that is, degree of bimanual coordination and focus of attention, are discussed. (Author/MB)