Immediate and delayed recognition of visual stimuli in poor and normal readers.

The present study investigated the hypothesis that specific reading disability is attributable to inadequate visual memory. Previous research had demonstrated that poor readers sustain no basic dysfunction in visual perception, but there was need to evaluate the possibility that deficiencies in letter and word recognition result from disorder in long-term visual storage. Adopting a format employed in a previous study, randomly arranged Hebrew letters were presented to poor and normal readers unfamiliar with Hebrew, and both groups were asked to demonstrate retention for these stimuli on three separate occasions: immediately after initial presentation, 24 hours later and 6 months later. As a control measure, the performance of the non-Hebrew subjects was compared with that of normal readers familiar with Hebrew letters. It was found that retention in the non-Hebrew groups was equivalent under all of the temporal conditions, but the performance of both was poorer than the Hebrew groups under the immediate and 24-hour conditions. However, none of the reader groups differed in the case of retention after a 6-month delay period. It was concluded that deficient visual memory is an unlikely source of specific reading disability, and alternative explanations of the disorder were considered.     

Phonemic awareness and spelling: children's judgments do not always agree with adults

The ability to make explicit judgments about speech sounds is important in learning to read and write an alphabetic system. However, even when children can make consistent judgments about sounds their judgments do not always agree with those of adults. In this study, some children from groups of kindergartners (mean age 5 years, 10 months) and first graders (mean age 6, 7) stated that /tr/ (as in "truck") did not begin with the sound /t/. This judgment was reflected in these children's spellings: They tended to spell /t/ before /r/ with CH, reflecting its affrication. Parallel results were found for /dr/. Further, some children judged that /c/ (as in "chill") and /j/ (as in "Jill") began with /t/ and /d/, respectively. They used the letters T and D to spell these sounds. Thus, children's attention to a phonetic level may result in judgments of speech sounds and spellings that are different from those of adults.     

Hierarchical planning disability in the drawings and constructions of a special group of severely aphasic children

A small group of severely receptive aphasic children who appear to be suffering from a rare aphasic syndrome that has been referred to in the literature as "acquired aphasia with convulsive disorder in children" was tested on drawing and construction tasks which tap hierarchical planning abilities. Although they could draw and construct a complex figure when using a serial method, they could not do so when required to use hierarchical planning in building up the model in terms of its subunits. Their scores reflecting hierarchical ability were significantly lower than those of age-matched profoundly deaf and normal children. The nature of this disability is discussed and its effects noted on tasks in other modalities. It is argued that neither an auditory deficit theory nor a short-term memory deficit theory is adequate to account for the observed disabilities. Individual differences in the group were noted. It was also found that a smaller percentage of developmentally expressive aphasic children evidenced the hierarchical planning disability. It is concluded that a primary hierarchical planning disability in some aphasic children can account for some aspects of their linguistic disabilities and for disabilities on other nonlanguage and nonauditory tasks.     

Career exploration in adulthood

The study described was designed to examine career exploration in the adult years, as seen from the perspective of decision-making behavior. Using conceptual models provided by H. B. Gelatt (Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1962, 9, 240–245) and D. V. Tiedeman (Personnel and Guidance Journal, 1961, 40, 15–21), two research questions were posed: (1) To what extent does exploration occur prior to more terminal career behaviors? and (2) To what extent are exploratory and terminal career decision modes interdependent? These questions were addressed by examining the series of decisions made by 95 subjects over a period of 18 years. The results supported the expectation that decisions made at earlier stages of development are more likely to be of an exploratory nature and that decisions made at later stages are more likely to be of a terminal nature. In addition, support was found for the hypothesis that decision-making strategies at various stages of development are interdependent.