Reading skill and language skill

To learn to read is to acquire a visual language skill which systematically maps onto extant spoken language skills. Some children perform this task quite adeptly while others encounter much difficulty, and it has become a question of both scientific and practical merit to ask why there exists such a range of success in learning to read. Obviously, learning to read places a complex burden on many emerging capacities, and in principle, at least, reading disability could arise at any level from visual perception to general cognition. Yet since reading is parasitic on spoken language, the possibility also exists that reading disability is derived from some subtle difficulty in the language domain. This article reviews some of the many studies which have explored the association between early reading skills and spoken language skills. The focus will be on findings which reveal that when the linguistic short-term memory skills of good and poor beginning readers are critically examined, considerably many, though perhaps not all, poor readers prove to possess subtle deficiencies which correlate with their problems in learning to read.     

Putting knowledge in its place: A scheme for programming parallel processing structures on the fly

This paper introduces a mechanism called CID, the Connection Information Distributor. CID extends connectionism by providing a way to program networks of simple processing elements on line, in response to processing demands. Without CID, simultaneous processing of several patterns has only been possible by prewiring multiple copies of the network needed to process one pattern at a time. With CID, programmable processing structures can be loaded with connection information stored centrally, as needed. To illustrate some of the characteristics of the scheme, a CID version of the interactive activation model of word recognition is described. The model has a single permanent representation of the connection information required for word perception, but it allows several words to be processed simultaneously in separate programmable networks. Multiword processing is not perfect, however. The model produces the same kinds of intrusion errors that human subjects make in processing brief presentations of word-pairs, such as SAND LANE (SAND is often misreported as LAND or SANE). The resource requirements of the mechanism, in terms of nodes and connections, are found to be quite moderate, primarily because networks that are programmed in response to task demands can be much smaller than networks that have knowledge of large numbers of patterns built in.     

Motor and cognitive interference effects on unimanual tapping rates

Experiments conducted on both normal and disordered populations have led to the hypothesis that the left hemisphere's specialization for language results from its control over motor activities. This control is reflected in the lateralized disruption of manual activity during cerebral time-sharing tasks. Recent studies have challenged this hypothesis, stating that the interference effects reflect both cognitive and motor mechanisms in the left hemisphere. This experiment investigates whether the left hemisphere's control over speech involves both of these components or is purely motor. The question was examined by measuring the effect of concurrent hemispheric activity on single-finger tapping rates. Forty subjects tapped under two conditions: speaking and listening. The data show there may be both motor and cognitive mechanisms involved in left-hemisphere control.     

Identifying the relevant aspects of a problem text

Forty-nine subjects judged the relevancy of sentence parts of a word problem (the Allsports problem). Patterns of subjects' judgments suggest three problem-solving heuristics: a SETS heuristic, a TIME heuristic, and a QUESTION heuristic. Presentation of the question before the problem tends to suppress SETS and TIME heuristics. A computer program (ATTEND) is presented to simulate subjects' behavior on the Allsports problem. The program is context-sensitive in that it can change a relevance judgment upon the acquisition of further information. Averaged subject judgments and ATTEND judgments agree for 87% of the items.     

Commentary on social class differences in sociodramatic play in historical context: A reply to McLoyd

Historical origins of the research on the cultural correlates of imaginative behavior by the Israeli psychologists Feitelson, Smilansky, and Eifermann are presented. It is argued that despite McLoyd's searching analysis of the deficiencies in studies which attempt to relate level of imaginative play to social class, those earlier cross-cultural studies, together with some 50 years of prior research on social class and play in general, provide a context which gives support to those studies despite their particular methodological deficiencies.     

Help-seeking: An understudied problem-solving skill in children

Traditional approaches to the study of young children's behavior in helping relationships are examined and criticized as inadequate because they have failed to represent the child's perspective from the role of “active helpee” (i.e., help-seeker in such relationships). By failing to look at helping from the perspective of the one who seeks help, researchers have neglected to pursue an important lead in understanding why some children are able to learn and progress independently when confronted with the same obstacles that serve to defeat other children. This article focuses on instrumental help-seeking defined as an active, complex social-cognitive activity that is essential to learning and achievement. In the first sections of this article, it is argued that instrumental help-seeking can be formally distinguished from passive dependency as well as from the actual giving and receiving of help. In following sections, a heuristic model of the help-seeking process is offered, prior research relevant to the model is reviewed, and ideas for research on help-seeking in children are suggested within the framework of this model.     

Behavior modification in education: Contributions and limitations

Behavior modification has been applied widely in educational settings encompassing a wide range of student populations, ages, and areas of focus. Major contributions of behavior modification include development and evaluation of a large number of techniques with extensive classroom research. As a direct consequence of technique development, behavior modification has provided teachers with a selection of classroom practices and information regarding their use. Despite the widespread application of behavioral principles in education, several limitations can be identified including the responses that are altered, the emphasis on response consequences, the focus on child performance rather than behaviors of teachers and others, and the lack of maintenance of improvements evident in many programs. Although limitations can be identified within the field, remarkable advances have been made in identifying educational practices that can improve student and teacher behavior. A major limitation in applying behavior modification to education pertains to dissemination and extension of existing techniques to a large number of settings likely to profit their use. The present paper considers various contributions and limitations of contemporary behavior modification and suggests areas for expansion to augment the progress that has been made.