This study examined the relationship between academic domain specific self-concept (specifically mathematical and verbal) and the academic achievement in mathematics and English of young adolescents. Middle school students in grades seven and eight ranging in age from 12 to 15 years completed three subscales of the Self-Description…

This longitudinal study examined the hypothesis that two different types of joint-attention skills were related to verbal and nonverbal IQ measures through middle childhood. Subjects were infants born preterm and tested at 13 months and at 8 years. Findings provide support for the hypothesis that the initiation of joint attention makes a unique…

Discusses a longitudinal case study of the literacy levels and styles of thinking of a group of males disabled in print acquisition. Finds that subjects rapidly perceived a whole gestalt, executed with an economy of language, and retained strengths in visuospatial, nonverbal processing, while losing verbal language abilities. (RS)

Findings from observations of 64 8- and 9-year olds show that the use of exploratory talk, talking in which joint reasoning is made explicit, can improve group reasoning and that this exploratory talk can be taught and can transfer between educational contexts. Teaching exploratory talk also improved results on a nonverbal reasoning test. (SLD)

The first goal of this article is to discuss the role of nonverbal ability tests in the identification of academically gifted children. I note that most nonverbal tests measure verbally mediated cognitive processes, that they are neither "culture flee" nor "culture fair," and that we have known these facts for a very long time. I show that…

Background: Expressive language constitutes a major challenge to the development of individuals with Down syndrome. This paper investigates the relationships between expressive language abilities, language comprehension and the deficits in verbal short-term memory and hearing which are also associated with the syndrome. Methods: Tests of nonverbal…

Draw-A-Person (DAP) techniques are often used as developmental screening measures of non-verbal cognitive ability, particularly for young children who are being screened for possible early intervention services. The validity of the interchangeable use of three DAP scoring systems for kindergarten students was investigated by comparing scores and…

This report is about the education plan of the District of Columbia Public Schools for the 1981-82 school year. The first chapter describes the philosophy, goals, and instructional and achievement priorities of the board of education and superintendent; outlines categories of student competencies; summarizes 1980-81 performance data on the…

A current exploratory research project is directed toward developing means for gathering systematic data on nonverbal representation in young children. Tasks involving nonverbal representational functioning have been developed, evaluated in preliminary work with fifteen 4-year-old subjects, and revised. The revised series of tasks consists of four…

A group of 40 retarded (IQ 56 to 78) and a group of 40 normal subjects (IQ 100 to 115), each composed of 20 males and 20 females, 9 to 12 years old, were tested (1) to compare the differences between educable mentally retarded and normal children on a set of creativity measures, and (2) to investigate the extent to which the creativity measures…

Birth-order is unrelated to verbal and nonverbal IQ performance of either Black or White children; family size is inversely related to the verbal IQ performance of both groups but not to their nonverbal performance; and the inverse impact of family size on verbal ability does not differ significantly by race. (Author/RM)

A sexual dimorphism in the functional asymmetry of the damaged human brain is reflected in a test-specific laterality effect in male patients, explaining some contradictions concerning the effects of unilateral brain damage on intelligence in studies in which the influence of sex was overlooked. (Author/SK)

This study of 8 language-disordered children, ages 5-8, found that subjects increased their nonverbal behavior as message conditions changed from unambiguous to ambiguous. Nonverbal indication was generally the only signal of ambiguity detection exhibited by subjects and language-matched peers, whereas age-matched peers consistently indicated…

A study conducted with 105 university students investigated the effectiveness of using previous research findings as a means of teaching students how to interpret verbal and nonverbal behavior (decoding). Practice may be the critical feature for training in decoding. Research findings were successfully converted into educational techniques. (SLD)