Mirror-drawing skill in children with specific language impairment: Improving generalization by incorporating variability into the practice session

This study aimed to investigate the procedural deficit hypothesis (PDH) in children with specific language impairment (SLI) by using a mirror-drawing task, a sensorimotor adaptation paradigm that does not involve sequence learning and has never before been used in SLI. A total of 30 school-aged children with SLI matched to 30 typically developing (TD) control children had to trace several figures seen only in mirror-reversed view in two practice sessions separated by a one-week interval. Two practice conditions were compared: a constant condition in which children had to trace the same figure throughout the learning trials, and a variable one in which they had to trace different figures in each trial. The results revealed a similar learning pattern between SLI and TD children in both practice conditions, suggesting that initial learning for a non-sequential procedural task is preserved in SLI. However, the children with SLI generalized the mirror-drawing skill in the same way as the TD children only if there was variability in the way the material was trained (variable practice). No significant schedule effects were observed in the control group.     

Analysis of an ambiguous-feature discrimination

An autoshaping experiment with pigeons and three appetitive Pavlovian conditioning experiments with rats investigated the course of an ambiguous-feature discrimination in which trials with stimuli A and BC were followed by food, and trials with B and AC were not. The discrimination between A and B was acquired more rapidly than the discrimination between BC and AC in all experiments. Furthermore, the acquisition of conditioned responding with A was faster than that with BC for the three rat experiments. The results of these experiments are discussed in terms of elemental and configural theories of associative learning.     

STIMULUS OVERSELECTIVITY IN LEARNING DISABLED CHILDREN

Stimulus overselectivity, a phenomenon exhibited by autistic and institutionalized retarded individuals, was examined in mildly handicapped and nonhandicapped public school children. Subjects were 16 young, educable mentally retarded, 16 learning disabled, 15 nonhandicapped first- and second-graders, and 16 older, educable retarded students. The children were trained on a 3-component visual discrimination task and then tested on individual elements to determine which element or elements were controlling subject responses. Nine of the young educable mentally retarded children and eight of the learning disabled students showed some overselectivity. The majority of overselective retarded children were controlled by only one of the three components of the training cue, whereas the majority of the overselective learning disabled children responded to the discrimination task on the basis of two of the three components. No overselectivity was exhibited by the nonhandicapped students. All three cue components were also functional in controlling the responding of 14 of the 16 older retarded students, but two children were under the control of only one cue. The research indicated that in terms of overselectivity, learning disabled children respond more like young, mildly retarded children than they do like nonhandicapped ones. The demonstration of stimulus overselectivity in a sizable portion of a learning disabled sample may have implications for a more empirically based approach to this handicapped population.     

Intertrial interval effects on internal stimulus control of behavior in brightness differential conditioning

In Experiment 1, groups were given a trial sequence in differential conditioning in which all S+ trials preceded all S? trials (+? schedule) or one in which some S+ trials followed S? trials (+?+ schedule) and either a 1- or a 30-min intertrial interval (ITI). ITI affected discrimination learning only in the +? schedule condition; schedule affected discrimination only at massed trials. In Experiment.2, all groups received a +?+ schedule. In two groups, given a 1- or 15-min ITI between all trials, discrimination learning was independent of ITI. Discrimination learning was facilitated in two other groups given a 1-min ITI between all trials except between S? and the subsequent S+ trial, when the ITI was either 15 or 60 min. The results were discussed in terms of their implications for internal reward-related stimulus control of behavior in differential conditioning.     

Learning to learn from video? 30-month-olds benefit from continued use of supportive scaffolding

Young children struggle to learn new words presented on video, but adult co-viewers can support them by providing scaffolds that explicitly connect the video and real world. In this study, we asked whether scaffolding facilitates children’s symbolic understanding of the video, such that they will subsequently transfer labels from video to real referents. Sixty-three 30-month-olds and 61 36-month-olds participated in a series of three word learning trials in one of three conditions. In the supportive condition, an in-person adult explicitly drew connections between each on-screen object and the corresponding real object in the room with the child. In the unsupportive condition, the in-person adult provided similar-length statements about the objects but did not draw connections between them. In the partial scaffold condition, the in-person adult provided the supportive scaffolds for the first two trials and the unsupportive version for the third trial. At 30 months, children selected the correct object on the third trial more often in the supportive than the unsupportive scaffold condition, and performance in the partial scaffold condition fell in between. At 36 months, performance on the third trial did not differ across conditions. The results showed that experiencing the scaffold twice was not enough to reliably support 30-month-olds in learning to think symbolically on the third trial; rather, they appeared to rely on the adult to connect the video image with its specific real-world referent. At 36 months, however, children did not rely on the adult scaffold to apply the video label to the real-world objects.     

That's More Like It: Multiple Exemplars Facilitate Word Learning

Previous research indicates learning words facilitates categorisation. The current study explores how categorisation affects word learning. In the current study, we investigated whether learning about a category facilitates retention of newly learned words by presenting 2‐year‐old children with multiple referent selection trials to the same object category. In Experiment 1, children either encountered the same exemplar repeatedly or encountered multiple exemplars across trials. All children did very well on the initial task; however, only children who encountered multiple exemplars retained these mappings after a short delay. Experiment 2 replicated and extended this finding by exploring the effect of within‐category variability on children's word retention. Children encountered either narrow or broad exemplars across trials. Again, all children did very well on the initial task; however, only children who encountered narrow exemplars retained mappings after a short delay. Overall, these data offer strong evidence that providing children with the opportunity to compare across exemplars during fast mapping facilitates retention. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

5~6岁自闭症儿童与正常儿童的辨别反转学习研究

采用条件性辨别反转范式,考察自闭症儿童与正常儿童的反转灵活性。44名5~6岁儿童（24名自闭症儿童,20名正常儿童）参加了辨别反转学习。结果显示：⑴在习得阶段,两类儿童都能辨别两个不同的条件性刺激;⑵在晚期反转阶段,正常儿童在晚期反转阶段升高了对新的条件性厌恶刺激的主观预期值,辨别了新的条件性刺激,而自闭症儿童在晚期反转阶段对新的条件性厌恶刺激的主观预期值没有显著性变化,无法辨别新的条件性刺激。研究结果表明,5~6岁自闭症儿童反转灵活性存在缺陷。     

Visual variability affects early verb learning

Research demonstrates that within‐category visual variability facilitates noun learning; however, the effect of visual variability on verb learning is unknown. We habituated 24‐month‐old children to a novel verb paired with an animated star‐shaped actor. Across multiple trials, children saw either a single action from an action category (identical actions condition, for example, travelling while repeatedly changing into a circle shape) or multiple actions from that action category (variable actions condition, for example, travelling while changing into a circle shape, then a square shape, then a triangle shape). Four test trials followed habituation. One paired the habituated verb with a new action from the habituated category (e.g., ‘dacking’ + pentagon shape) and one with a completely novel action (e.g., ‘dacking’ + leg movement). The others paired a new verb with a new same‐category action (e.g., ‘keefing’ + pentagon shape), or a completely novel category action (e.g., ‘keefing’ + leg movement). Although all children discriminated novel verb/action pairs, children in the identical actions condition discriminated trials that included the completely novel verb, while children in the variable actions condition discriminated the out‐of‐category action. These data suggest that – as in noun learning – visual variability affects verb learning and children's ability to form action categories.     

Overselectivity,developmental level,and overtraining in autistic and normal children

Thirteen autistic children were compared to 13 normal children, matched to them in mental age, on performance of a visual discrimination task. Form, color, and size were relevant and redundant cues. The groups did not differ significantly in mean trials to reach criterion or in breadth of learning, and both groups increased their breadth of learning after 50 trials of overtraining. Form was preferred to color and size by both autistic and normal children. Within each group, rank on mental age was highly correlated with rank in breadth of learning. Verbal and nonverbal autistic children did not differ in breadth of learning or in dimensional preference. Even nonverbal autistics equaled the performance of their normal controls. Our results suggest that overselective attention is better understood as part of a general developmental lag in cognition in autistic children than as a specific deficit underlying psychotic behavior.This research was supported in part by NIMH Grant 11440, O. I. Lovaas, principal investigator. The authors thank Dr. Lovaas and Dennis C. Russo for their helpful criticisms of an earlier draft.     

Effects of exemplar training in exclusion responding on auditory-visual discrimination tasks with children with autism

In Experiment 1 with 7 autistic children (3 to 6 years old), auditory-visual exclusion was tested with four unknown word-item pairs for each child. One child demonstrated exclusion and positive learning outcomes unequivocally with the four auditory-visual relations. Three children demonstrated exclusion, though inconsistently, and failed to demonstrate positive learning outcomes. The remaining 3 children failed to demonstrate exclusion; therefore, the learning outcome test was omitted. The 6 children who failed to demonstrate exclusion or positive learning outcomes participated in the second experiment. In Experiment 2, nonreinforced exclusion trials with four new unknown word-item pairs were included in trial blocks that also contained reinforced exclusion trials with the unknown exemplars from Experiment 1. Five children demonstrated exclusion with the new word-item pairs, and 4 of these demonstrated positive learning outcomes in further tests. One child demonstrated some limited but inconsistent improvement in exclusion and was not tested for learning outcomes. The data suggest that contemporaneous presentation of multiple examples of reinforced exclusion facilitated nonreinforced exclusion performances and that the resulting reduction in errors was critical in producing accurate learning outcomes with the new word-item discriminations.     

The beneficial effect of synchronized action on motor and perceptual timing in children

We examined the role of action in motor and perceptual timing across development. Adults and children aged 5 or 8 years old learned the duration of a rhythmic interval with or without concurrent action. We compared the effects of sensorimotor versus visual learning on subsequent timing behaviour in three different tasks: rhythm reproduction (Experiment 1), rhythm discrimination (Experiment 2) and interval discrimination (Experiment 3). Sensorimotor learning consisted of sensorimotor synchronization (tapping) to an isochronous visual rhythmic stimulus (ISI = 800 ms), whereas visual learning consisted of simply observing this rhythmic stimulus. Results confirmed our hypothesis that synchronized action during learning systematically benefitted subsequent timing performance, particularly for younger children. Action‐related improvements in accuracy were observed for both motor and perceptual timing in 5 years olds and for perceptual timing in the two older age groups. Benefits on perceptual timing tasks indicate that action shapes the cognitive representation of interval duration. Moreover, correlations with neuropsychological scores indicated that while timing performance in the visual learning condition depended on motor and memory capacity, sensorimotor learning facilitated an accurate representation of time independently of individual differences in motor and memory skill. Overall, our findings support the idea that action helps children to construct an independent and flexible representation of time, which leads to coupled sensorimotor coding for action and time.     

Discrimination training of phonemic contrasts enhances phonological processing in mainstream school children

Auditory perceptual learning has been proposed as effective for remediating impaired language and for enhancing normal language development. We examined the effect of phonemic contrast discrimination training on the discrimination of whole words and on phonological awareness in 8- to 10-year-old mainstream school children. Eleven phonemic contrast continua were synthesised using linear interpolation coding from real speaker endpoints. Thirty children were pre-tested on the Word Discrimination Test (WDT) and the Phonological Assessment Battery (PhAB). Eighteen then trained for 12 x 30min sessions over 4 weeks using an adaptive three interval two alternative phonemic matching task. The remaining children participated in regular classroom activities. In Post-testing, trained children significantly increased their age-equivalent scores on both the WDT and PhAB by about 2 years. For the PhAB, no improvement was found in the controls. Enhanced performance in the trained children was maintained in a delayed test 5-6 weeks following training. Enhancements on the trained discriminations were weak and variable. The results indicate a dramatic improvement in phonological awareness following phonemic discrimination training without matching perceptual learning.     

流动儿童的歧视知觉与学校适应:一项追踪研究

采用追踪研究考察了流动儿童的歧视知觉与学校适应之间的双向关系及其是否存在性别差异。分别在初一和初二上学期,邀请流动儿童（男孩157人,女孩124人;M_年龄=13.09岁,SD=1.13）填写歧视知觉问卷,邀请父母及老师评价流动儿童在学校的适应情况。结果表明,男孩知觉到的歧视和学校适应问题显著高于女孩。流动儿童第一年知觉到的歧视正向预测其第二年的学校适应问题,但儿童第一年的学校适应问题不能预测其第二年的歧视知觉,二者之间的关系不存在性别差异。本研究表明,歧视体验和知觉对流动儿童的学校适应具有单向的、消极的影响。     

Cross-modal working memory binding and learning of visual-phonological associations in children with reading difficulties

Reading decoding requires the association of a visual input (the printed word) with a verbal output (the spoken word), and the learning of visual-phonological associations via repeated exposure occurs both explicitly (by instruction and training) and implicitly (by exposure to written material). However, a general ability to implicitly learn visual-phonological associations (or cross-modal bindings) in children with reading difficulties (RD) has not been deeply explored. The present paper examined this issue in two studies comparing groups of children with RD with matched groups of control children in a working memory binding task involving sequences of variable combinations of nonsense shapes and nonwords (odd trials), as well as fixed combinations (even trials). Stimuli presentation was followed by a recognition test in which the nonwords were given one at a time and the children were required to mouse click on their respective shapes. In Study 1, fixed bindings were presented in random sequences across even trials, and the recognition test presented the nonwords at random. In Study 2, fixed bindings were presented in the same order across even trials, and the recognition test presented the nonwords following the same sequence order. In both studies, a consistent and strong learning effect of fixed bindings was observed for the control groups, with significantly better performance than the groups with RD. Such results suggest that poor cross-modal binding learning is associated with reading difficulties. Implications for the study and treatment of dyslexia are discussed.     

非母语语音短期学习的年龄效应

采用短期人工训练的范式,选取没有任何朝鲜语经验的二年级儿童、五年级儿童和大学生为被试,以一对朝鲜语语音为材料,探讨非母语语音学习的年龄效应。被试分别在学习前和每天学习后完成语音分辨测查。结果发现:(1)汉语被试辨别朝鲜语紧音/k^*/和松音/k/时存在困难;(2)在学习前,大学生的语音辨别正确率最高,五年级儿童次之,二年级儿童最低;(3)学习后,二年级儿童辨别成绩的提高量高于五年级儿童和大学生。该结果支持了学习非母语语音的年龄越小,学习效果越好、学习速度更快的假设。     

SELF-STIMULATION AND LEARNING IN AUTISTIC CHILDREN: PHYSICAL OR FUNCTIONAL INCOMPATIBILITY?1

This study investigated whether an observed inverse relationship between self-stimulation and learning in autistic children is due to a physical inability of the subject to use the same body part for self-stimulation and task responding, or whether self-stimulation “distracts” the subject from task responding. Four actively self-stimulating autistic children were taught two discrimination tasks; one required a response that physically interferred with their self-stimulation; the other did not. Results were: (a) all subjects responded similarly across both tasks; (b) the three subjects with higher mental age scores learned both tasks without external suppression of self-stimulation; and (c) none of the subjects showed an inverse relationship between self-stimulation and learning. The study demonstrated that elimination of self-stimulation is not a necessary prerequisite for the acquisition of a new behavior in all autistic children.     

TASK DIFFICULTY AND ABERRANT BEHAVIOR IN SEVERELY HANDICAPPED STUDENTS

The influence of task difficulty on aberrant behavior was investigated with three severely handicapped students. Noticeably higher rates of problem behavior occurred in demand compared to no-demand conditions. In addition, there were higher rates of problem behaviors on difficult versus easy tasks. Both these findings were validated with visual discrimination and perceptual motor tasks. An errorless learning procedure effectively minimized errors and aberrant behavior in visual discrimination tasks but not in perceptual motor tasks. It was conceptualized that aberrant behavior was maintained by negative reinforcement contingencies. Difficult tasks were aversive to the children, who emitted aberrant responses to escape or avoid such tasks. By contrast, conditions in which no demands were made, easy tasks, and, in visual discrimination learning, errorless tasks, were less aversive and resulted in little or no problem behavior. Implications for reducing maladaptive behaviors through curricular modifications are discussed and contrasted to more traditional consequence manipulation approaches.     

A probe trial procedure for the study of children's discrimination learning and transfer

A discrimination reversal problem was presented to 192 children varying in age from 3 to 5 years. At the end of both the initial learning and transfer trials, probe trials were introduced to ascertain the response rule describing children's choices. Results were analyzed in terms of a binary division of the children according to their responses to the probe stimuli; children who responded errorlessly (concept responders) were contrasted with children who made errors on the probes (instance responders). Using this criterion, it was found that many children transferred in a way different from the way they learned the initial problem. There was no difference in the proportion of younger and older children responding conceptually to the original problem, but older children were more likely to transfer conceptually when standard geometric blocks were used as stimuli. Future studies must consider the possiblity that learning and transfer may be accomplished by different processes whose application differs with age, the nature of the stimuli, and the stage of training.     

Gender schemas and the salience of gender: Individual differences in nonreversal discrimination learning

Sixty-seven 3–6-year-old children, identified as gender schematic and aschematic, completed a nonreversal discrimination learning task. This task permits examination of children's abilities to attend selectively to particular dimensions of a multidimensional stimulus. Gender typing and size of stimulus were the relevant target dimensions. Gender schematic children required significantly more trials to criterion when the shift was from sex type to size of stimulus, and significantly fewer trials to criterion when the shift was from size to sex type of stimulus, than did aschematic children. Gender aschematic children's performance was relatively unaffected by type of stimulus dimension. Results support predictions of the differential salience of the gender dimension to gender schematic and aschematic children.     

Surface features can deeply affect artificial grammar learning

Three experiments explored the extent to which surface features explain discrimination between grammatical and non-grammatical strings in artificial grammar learning (AGL). Experiment 1 replicated Knowlton and Squire’s (1996) paradigm using either letter strings as in the original study, or an analogous set of color strings to further explore if learning was affected by type of stimuli. Learning arose only with letter strings, but the results were mostly due to the discrimination of non-grammatical strings containing highly salient illegal features. Experiments 2 and 3 tested a new grammar devised to control for those features. Experiment 2 showed reduced grammar learning effects, and again only for letter materials. Experiment 3 explored the effect of additional practice with letter stimuli, and found increased learning only in the spaced practice condition, though additional practice also produced more explicit knowledge. These findings call for further research on the boundary conditions of learning in AGL paradigms.