Five years have elapsed since the International Conference on Malnutrition, Learning, and Behavior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The present Seminar was held to examine progress since then. The following papers were presented and discussed: "Malnutrition and the Nervous System," Donald B. Cheek, A. B. Holt, and E. D. Mellits;…

The prelinguistic child's attempts at communication cannot be viewed as rudimentary language. More than cataloguing overt acts, we need to understand the functional character of both language and non-language communication capabilities, and in particular the maturational stages of the internal communication systems that produce overt behavior in…

Describes recent research findings in the area of neurobiology and its relationship to learning and memory. The article provides definitions of associative and nonassociative learning, identifies essential memory trace circuits of the mammalian brain, and discusses some neural mechanisms of learning. (TW)

New research suggests that exceptionally stressful experiences early in life may have long-term consequences for a child's learning, behavior, and both physical and mental health. Some types of "positive stress" in a child's life--overcoming the challenges and frustrations of learning a new, difficult task, for instance--can be beneficial. Severe,…

Children develop emotional intelligence during the early years of life, and according to some experts, emotional intelligence is a more reliable predictor of academic achievement than is IQ. However, today's children appear to be low on emotional well-being. This has potentially negative consequences, not only for academic achievement but also for…

New science shows that exposure to toxins prenatally or early in life can have a devastating and lifelong effect on the developing architecture of the brain. Exposures to many chemicals have much more severe consequences for embryos, fetuses, and young children, whose brains are still developing, than for adults. Substances that can have a truly…

Authored by the teaching staff of T-560: Meeting the Challenge of Individual Differences at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, this article reflects on potential applications of universal design for learning (UDL) in university courses, illustrating major points with examples from T-560. The article explains the roots of UDL in cognitive…

An irrelevant auditory probe procedure was used to evoke brain event-related potentials (ERPs) in 56 Navy recruits while they learned pulsed radar concepts presented to them in study booklets. A mastery test was administered to assess concept acquisition. The research issue was whether brain ERPs recorded while students are in the process of…

A study designed to examine biological, sociological, and early maturational correlates of intelligence collected data prospectively, from birth to 15 years of age, on a sample of 987 black children. Multiple indicators of eight independent and three dependent variables were tested in a structural equation model. Altogether, clear sex differences…

Current writings on the functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain are examined, focusing upon possible implications for improving present educational techniques. It has been generally accepted by researchers that the organizational and verbalizing processes are functions of the left cerebral hemisphere, while creative and intuitive…

This presidential address before the Midwestern Education Research Association describes the chain of evidence that is required to link brain research to classroom practice; describes some of the proposed brain-based curricula and the kinds of evidence presented to support them; and suggests guidelines for evaluating proposals for implementing…

This monograph investigates aspects of language processing that are not specialized in the left hemisphere, and claims that there are "levels" (such as pitch functions) and "subsets" (such as phrase structuring) which are different in essential ways from each other, and from the aspects of speech and language which are typically lateralized.…

Contents include a definition of brain injury and cerebral palsy, discussions of the pathology of cerebral palsy, incidence and prevalence of cerebral palsy, mental retardation, epilepsy, behavioral disorders, dyslexia, and a summary and conclusions on the problem of brain injury. Attention is also given to the controversy over brain injury as a…

This book contains a collection of papers that focus on normal infant development, particularly from the standpoint of learning. Written by leading experts from a member of disciplines, these papers deal with topics such as: the examination and observation of infants, including neurological, neuropsychological, and neurobehavioral aspects;…

This collection on speech research presents a number of reports of experiments conducted on neurological, physiological, and phonological questions, using electronic equipment for analysis. The neurological experiments cover auditory and phonetic processes in speech perception, auditory storage, ear asymmetry in dichotic listening, auditory…