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This paper introduces a revised model for the development of basic computation skills. The model draws on four key phases, which have proven to be important for the development of calculation strategies and stresses the use of gestures and the verbalisation of concrete and mental images. This seems to be of crucial importance for children with special needs as the case of Mia illustrates. Context is a university based intervention program that seeks to support children who struggle with the learning of basic arithmetic concepts and skills.

Adaptive e-Learning systems are able to adjust to a user's learning needs, usually by user modeling or tracking progress. Such learner-adaptive behavior has rapidly become a hot topic for e-Learning, furthered in part by the recent rapid increase in the use of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). A lack of general, individual, and situational data about student populations currently hampers the infusion of effective adaptive behavior into existing e-Learning platforms. This contribution presents original research on using differences in individual learning styles. Factors related to performance, motivation, satisfaction, and previous knowledge were targeted and used to assess the effectiveness of the approach. We discuss alternative bases for adaptation (e.g. cognitive styles), style distributions in student populations, and conclude with repercussions for adaptive behavior in HCI in general. [For the full proceedings, see ED562095.]

These proceedings contain the papers of the International Conference e-Learning 2015, which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information and Society and is part of the Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, July 21-24, 2015). The e-Learning 2015 conference aims to address the main issues of concern within e-Learning. This conference covers both technical as well as the non-technical aspects of e-Learning. The conference accepted submissions in the following seven main areas: Organisational Strategy and Management Issues; Technological Issues; e-Learning Curriculum Development Issues; Instructional Design Issues; e-Learning Delivery Issues; e-Learning Research Methods and Approaches; and e-Skills and Information Literacy for Learning. The conference included the Keynote Lectures: (1) "Fail Fast and Fail Forward--Embracing Failure as a Necessary Precursor of Success in the Delivery of eLearning Services," by Steven Duggan, Director, Worldwide Education Strategy, Microsoft; and (2) "A Different Perspective on the Singularity Point. How It Is Substituting Jobs in the Service Sector," by Jacques Bulchand-Gidumal, Professor of Digital Enterprises and Entrepreneurship, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. Papers in these proceedings include: (1) Playing Music, Playing with Music: A Proposal for Music Coding in Primary School (Adriano Baratè, Luca Andrea Ludovico, Giuseppina Rita Mangione, and Alessia Rosa); (2) Learning through Telepresence with iPads: Placing Schools in Local/Global Communities (Bente Meyer); (3) Strategic Decision Making Cycle in Higher Education: Case Study of E-Learning (Blaženka Divjak and Nina Begicevic Redep); (4) Performance & Emotion--A Study on Adaptive E-Learning Based on Visual/Verbal Learning Styles (Jennifer Beckmann, Sven Bertel, and Steffi Zander); (5) A MOOC and a Professional SPOC (Xu Cui, Zhenglei Zhang, and Lei Sun); (6) Increase in Testing Efficiency through the Development of an IT-Based Adaptive Testing Tool for Competency Measurement Applied to a Health Worker Training Test Case (Janne Kleinhans and Matthias Schumann); (7) Cognitive Presence in Virtual Collaborative Learning Assessing and Improving Critical Thinking in Online Discussion Forums (Jennifer Beckmann and Peter Weber); (8) Developing a Mobile Learning Management System for Outdoors Nature Science Activities Based on 5E Learning Cycle (Ah-Fur Lai, Horng-Yih Lai, Wei-Hsiang Chuang, and Zih-Heng Wu); (9) Behavioral Feature Extraction to Determine Learning Styles in E-Learning Environments (Somayeh Fatahi, Hadi Moradi, and Elaheh Farmad); (10) Maximizing and Personalizing E-Learning Support for Students with Different Backgrounds and Preferences (Olga Mironova, Irina Amitan, Jelena Vendelin, Jüri Vilipõld, and Merike Saar); (11) Usability of a Web-Based School Experience System: Opinions of IT Teachers and Teacher Candidates (Zülfü Genç); (12) Methodological Proposal for Elaboration of Learning Materials in Sign Language in University Teaching (J. Guillermo Viera-Santana, Dionisio Rodríguez-Esparragón, Juan C. Hernández-Haddad, and Jesús Castillo-Ortiz); (13) Moodle E-Learning System and Students' Performance in Higher Education: The Case of Public Administration Programmes (Lan Umek, Damijana Keržic, Nina Tomaževic, and Aleksander Aristovnik); (14) Cada Día Spanish: An Analysis of Confidence and Motivation in a Social Learning Language MOOC (Michael Henry and Diana Marrs); (15) Creating Games as Authentic Learning in the Information Technology Classroom (Mark Frydenberg); (16) Assisting Tutors to Utilize Web 2.0 Tools in Education (Isidoros Perikos, Foteini Grivokostopoulou, Konstantinos Kovas, and Ioannis Hatzilygeroudis); (17) Evaluating Students' Programming Skill Behaviour and Personalizing Their Computer Learning Environment Using "The Hour of Code" Paradigm (Nikolaos Mallios and Michael Gr. Vassilakopoulos); (18) Using Immersive Virtual Reality for Electrical Substation Training (Eduardo H. Tanaka, Juliana A. Paludo, Carlúcio S. Cordeiro, Leonardo R. Domingues, Edgar V. Gadbem, and Adriana Euflausino); (19) Goal Setting, Decision-Making Skills and Academic Performance of Undergraduate Distance Learners: Implications for Retention and Support Services (Nebath Tanglang and Aminu Kazeem Ibrahim); (20) Transformations: Mobile Interaction & Language Learning (Fiona Carroll, Rita Kop, Nathan Thomas, and Rebecca Dunning); (21) Digital Resource Exchange about Music (DREAM): Phase 2 Usability Testing (Rena Upitis, Karen Boese, Philip C. Abrami, and Zaeem Anwar); (22) Research Suggestions in the Design of a Global Graduate Business Program Delivered by Online Learning (Amy Puderbaugh); (23) Electronic Education System Model-2 (Fatih Güllü, Rein Kuusik, and Mart Laanpere); (24) Use of Cloud-Based Graphic Narrative Software in Medical Ethics Teaching (Alan S. Weber); (25) A Proposal to Enhance the Use of Learning Platforms in Higher Education (Bertil P. Marques, Jaime E. Villate, and Carlos Vaz de Carvalho); (26) Cloud Computing and Validated Learning for Accelerating Innovation in IoT (George Suciu, Gyorgy Todoran, Alexandru Vulpe, Victor Suciu, Cristina Butca, and Romulus Cheveresan); (27) An OWL Ontology for Metadata of Interactive Learning Objects (Bruno N. Luz, Rafael Santos, Bruno Alves, Andreza S. Areão, Marcos H. Yokoyama, and Marcelo P. Guimarães); (28) Utilizing E-Learning Systems in the Libyan Universities: Case Study; Tripoli University, Faculty of Engineering (Aisha Ammar Almansuri and Rowad Adel Elmansuri); (29) Making Sense of Game-Based User Data: Learning Analytics in Applied Games (Christina M. Steiner, Michael D. Kickmeier-Rust, and Dietrich Albert); (30) Practicing Low-Context Communication Strategies in Online Course Design for International Students Studying in the U.S. (Sharon Lalla); (31) Innovation Diffusion Model in Higher Education: Case Study of E-Learning Diffusion (Sanjana Buc and Blaženka Divjak); (32) Demonstrating DREAM: A Digital Resource Exchange about Music (Rena Upitis, Karen Boese, and Philip C. Abrami); (33) A Study on Teacher Training to Incorporate Gamification in Class Design--Program Development and Implementation in a Teacher Training Course (Shingo Shiota and Manabu Abe); (34) A Case Study of the Feedback Design in a Game-Based Learning for Low Achieving Students (Ting-Ling Lai and Hsiao-Fang Lin); (35) Development and Evaluation of an Informational Moral Lesson to Promote Awareness in Children (Kyohei Sakai, Shingo Shiota, and Kiyotaka Eguchi); and (36) Development and Design of a Problem Based Learning Game-Based Courseware (Chiung-Sui Chang, Jui-Fa Chen, and Fei-Ling Chen). Luís Rodrigues is an associate editor of the proceedings. Individual papers contain references. An author index is included. [For "Proceedings of the International Conference e-Learning 2014. Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (Lisbon, Portugal, July 15-19, 2014)," see ED557189.]

Different effects of instructional strategies on recall and comprehension of terms frequently used in formal analysis of art were examined. The study looked at a synthesis of three theoretical positions: dual-coding theory, schema theory, and elaboration theory. Two-hundred and fifty sixth-grade students were randomly assigned to three groups: control subjects, graphic subjects, and transformational subjects. Instruments consisted of Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) and the Art Vocabulary Test (AVT). The program consisted of three phases: (1) a 10-minute study session; (2) an interactive discussion, and (3) a drawing task. The results suggested that imagery strategies help students form and retain associations between verbal and visual information. Graphic organizers may promote more flexible applications of the associations for individuals who have already acquired good problem-solving skills. The concrete associations obtained from transformational imagery strategies improve student recall of specific associations. However, interview data suggested that the approach may constrain the associated meaning. Trends in the data are consistent with elaboration theory and could inform scholars and researchers who wish to analyze effects of visual and verbal associations. (KM)

The effect of supplementary questions on learning from textual materials was investigated in a sample of 94 college juniors. Each subject was given a 1,500-word passage describing the concept of measurement. One treatment group was asked to identify characteristics of the concept; another was asked to identify examples from the text; a third listed new examples; a control group was given a placebo task. The effect of telling students that the passage described a concept was also investigated. No significant treatment effects were found. (Author/AA)

The data from verbal learning studies have been partially instrumental in the development of the theory of extraversion-introversion (E-I) relative to levels of cortical arousal. In most of the studies relating E-I to verbal learning, the approach was to determine if there was an overall superiority for one of the personality groups. Differences in performance, even when obtained, do not prove that there are differences in learning rates. A stage analysis of paired-associate learning is one step in the direction of trying to localize the effects of E-I. Many researchers interested in the relationship of personality variables to verbal learning tasks are in essential agreement concerning the research strategy to be pursued. The shift is away from tasks such as paired-associate and serial learning toward the free recall tasks and recognition tasks. These tasks provide tools to answer much more specific questions. The specific questions being asked include the relationship of anxiety, extraversion, neuroticism, and ego-involvement to clustering, filtering, categorizing, pigeon-holing, detection sensitivity, and decision criteria. Relationships of this type wil likely prove to be more valuable to our understanding of these personality dimensions. (Author/WR)

This study tested the following hypotheses: (1) that children would use both verbal-associative and acoustic memory attributes when encoding words in memory, and that the recall of younger children would indicate dominance of the acoustic attribute while the recall of older children would indicate dominance of the verbal-associative attribute; (2) that there would be more rapid forgetting of the acoustic attribute during a delayed retention interval; and (3) that older subjects would evidence a higher degree of clustering of conceptually-related words and that younger subjects would produce a higher degree of clustering of rhyme-related words. A total of 284 third and sixth graders served as subjects. All subjects received the same treatment. Three word lists were developed, two of which were constructed with words whose relationship would reflect one of the memory attributes under investigation. The subjects learned and were tested on each of the three lists according to a standard free recall procedure. The results indicated that the subjects recalled conceptually-related and rhyme-related words significantly better than control words, and that children of elementary school age made use of these attributes in recalling organized verbal materials. (WR)

The effect on concept learning of requiring the memorization of either examples or nonexamples prior to going through a theoretically effective training program was compared to the performance of groups of seventh and eighth graders who either memorized nothing or memorized subconcepts of the concept definition. Correct classification scores and undergeneralization error scores were the primary dependent variables. With both a disjunctive and a conjunctive concept, no significant treatment differences were found with these variables. The three prior-memorization groups took significantly less time to reach criterion in the training program, but took significantly more total instructional time than did the no-prior-memorization groups. (Author)

Two purposes guided this study: (1) to investigate the effects of modeling on the verbalizations of lower-class, black, preschool children; and (2) to investigate the relationships between the dialect employed by the model and children's language production. As subjects, 72 black, preschool children in lower-class neighborhood day care centers of New York City were randomly assigned to one of six conditions, with each group consisting of six boys and six girls. Models were two dark brown, neuter gender hand puppets representing an adult and a child, while visual stimuli consisted of three pictures--a drum, a clown, and a dog. In the pretest, a visual stimulus was presented to all children who then wrote a story about it. Four modeling conditions varied in either the linguistic style (Black English or standard English) or the relative lengths of the modeling story, while two control groups provided comparative information. Children's pretest and posttest responses were tape-recorded. The major finding revealed that modeling in a shorter sequence, using Black English, caused greater verbal productivity. (JM)

Operant conditioning procedures were used in four studies to establish instruction following skills in severely and profoundly retarded children. In the first study, a combination of physical guidance, fading, and reinforcement procedures were used to train an 11-year-old boy to follow 25 verbal instructions. In the second study, a transfer of stimulus control procedure was invoked to train three children to follow the same instructions. Since no generalization occurred to untrained items in studies 1 and 2, a third study was undertaken with two Ss to determine whether being trained to follow instructions in which one verb was combined with several nouns would result in generalization when other verbs were combined with the same nouns. Ss of study 3 generalized to untrained items; however, there were some difficulties in establishing initial discriminations when training was initiated on the verb. In study 4, six Ss were trained on the individual noun and verb components in isolation. Two of the six Ss developed an intensive generative instruction following skill, three Ss developed a partial generative skill, and one S developed no generative abilities whatsoever. (GW)

In this study, kindergarten children classified as impulsive received (1) visual analysis training involving either motor or verbal responses, (2) were trained only to delay their responses, or (3) were assinged to a control group receiving no training. While all treatment groups showed a significant decrease in errors on the Matching Familiar Figures test immediately after training, only the group receiving visual analysis training involving verbalization was significantly different from a control group one month later. The importance of training children to use search strategies when attempting to modify impulsivity was supported. The role of verbalization was discussed and related to data from verbal learning experiments. (SB)

The primary purpose for conducting the present experiment was to assess the effects of an associative-attribute--for example, stimulus meaningfulness (m) on the learning rates of different age group children. An attempt was also made to assess the effects of age and m on a measure of subjective organization. This research consisted of two studies: in study one information was obtained on m values for 40 consonant-vowel-consonant words employing children in grades K, 2, and 6. Study two was concerned with the interrelationship between stimulus m and ontogeny on free recall learning rates and subjective organization. It was hypothesized that learning would be more rapid for older relative to younger children when word lists were identical, that is, stimulus m was allowed to co-vary with age. The findings indicated that increasing stimulus m had a within age facilitating effect on free recall learning. (RB)

This study examining children's ability to organize information for the purpose of recall was designed to control for verbal ability differences. The participants were 10 boys and 10 girls each from kindergarten, 2nd, 4th and 6th grades. A modified "Simon Says" game was used to enable the children to respond to eight selected verbal and motor commands with an appropriate motor act. The experimenter first read or demonstrated each of the eight commands in a random order and, after all the commands had been presented, asked the child to execute as many of the commands as he could. Each child received 20 presentations of the eight commands. Results revealed recall effects typically observed in studies on memory development in which words were used as stimuli or responses. These included: (1) serial position effects, with younger children showing more recency and older children more primacy effects, and (2) better recall by older children. However, since the younger children structured their responses in recall as well, and in the same way as older children, the developmental differences in amount recalled would not seem to depend on response organization. (JMB)

This study investigated children's performance with the passive-transformation when both the mode of presentation and the mode of response were verbal. The study was also designed to provide a framework for the examination of theoretical issues regarding strategies in speech perception. Kindergarten and first-grade children individually heard 6 sentences all in the same voice and all either harmonious with or contrary to children's previously expressed expectations regarding the likely actor in the sentences. After each sentence the child heard a question about the content of the sentence. The score for each child was the number of questions answered correctly. Results of this study support the hypothesis that children do not rely exclusively on any single sentence processing strategy. Instead, they combine their knowledge of the world, of words, and of language in the perception of speech. The results also indicate that an exclusively verbal mode of presentation and response is quite difficult for children. (Author/GO)

The two studies reported here investigate the impact of prosocial TV programs and rehearsal techniques on children's learning or acquisition of program content and on performance of behavioral adoption. Subjects for the studies were 73 kindergarten boys and girls who were predominantly middle and lower class. The children saw four 'Mr. Rogers' programs or four neutral programs on consecutive school days. Each of the four television programs was followed by a 15-20 minute training session. Two types of rehearsal were explored for children who saw the prosocial television programs: verbal labeling and role playing. Two principal measures were designed to evaluate learning of program content: (1) a Content Test (36 items with two alternatives each) administered on the last day of television viewing and training, and (2) a Puppet measure which provided an index of the child's verbalization of program themes. In the second study, a measure was taken of the children's inclination to engage in helping behavior in an actual experimentally controlled classroom situation. An overview of study findings indicated these conclusions: (1) Both types of training (verbal labeling and role playing) following prosocial television enhanced learning and performance of prosocial content; (2) Verbal labeling had greatest impact on verbal measures, particularly learning for girls; (3) Role playing was more effective, particularly for boys, in facilitating the performance of nonverbal helping behavior; and (4) The combined training condition often led to elevated scores for both sexes. (CS)

Sixty-five grade 5-6 children were tested on a verbal recall task involving material of varying semantic and syntactic content. There was no difference between best and poorest readers in their performance on random lists of words, but there were clear differences on meaningful sentences and on syntactically well-formed but semantically anomalous sentences. Semantic and syntactic regularities provide cues which may facilitate performance on all but the random lists of words, if the child has knowledge of the structural possibilities of English and the acceptable word combinations. The results on the recall task shows, therefore, that not all children are equally able to make use of semantic and syntactic knowledge in processing oral language and that this knowledge is related to their reading competence. The same linguistic information may be used by efficient adult readers in processing textual materials. Thus it seems likely that there may be a threshold level of proficiency prerequisite to reading development. (Author)

Examined were the effects of four teachers' use of a data-based behaviorally oriented planning technique on the verbal labeling performance of eight developmentally delayed children (2-5 years old). Teachers were introduced to a 10-tactic planning technique that included behaviors ranging from simply counting the number of correct and incorrect child responses, to conducting trend analysis and formal error analysis. Teachers were questioned daily regarding their use of the 10 tactics and were observed in using consequating events following a child error response. Results indicated that the planning technique increased correct, and decreased incorrect rates of students' responding. (Author/CL)

Investigated was the relative effectiveness of sign language and verbal language training in teaching 12 nonverbal hearing retarded children (4-9 years old) to communicate. Ss were randomly assigned to one of three groups: speech training (based on the Bricker, Dennison, Watson, and Vincent-Smith program), sign language training (adapted from the Bricker, et al program), and a control group. Results indicated that Ss receiving verbal or sign language training made progress, with neither group demonstrating more progress than the other. None of the Ss in the control group developed communication skills. (CL)

In order to establish an initial data source for elementary level home-based intervention programs, 18 dyads of second-graders and their parents were divided into three mutually exclusive achievement groups and observed while completing an instructional tool introduced into the home by the childs' school. Parent/child interactions were stimulated by means of a figure identification task and recorded on cassette audio tape recorder. Verbalizations resulting from the task were coded into speech acts, defined as statements, requests, and responses. Reliability for the coding procedure was ninety five percent. Analysis indicated: differential use of speech acts by parents and children across achievement differential performance rates and task outcomes across achievement levels, a relationship between achievement and socioeconmic status and a relationship between language function and task performance. The data are illustrated in tables. Parents of high achievers appeared to use proportionatly more statements in their verbalizations with the children, while the parents of low achievers made proportionaltely more requests. Excerpts illustrate the different ways in which parents used language to help their children overcome a performance impasse. (Author/AEF)

An analysis was performed of multiple-choice tests in terms of the frequency theory of recognition memory. High and low ability children listened to sentences under different instructional sets (imagery rating and sentence repetition) and were later tested with multiple-choice alternatives: (1) either identical or similar in meaning to the originally presented correct items, and (2) either including or not previously presented irrelevant information. The sources of interference anticipated from the theory were evident in both experiments. Moreover, instructional sets moderated frequency effects in the anticipated manner for lower ability children. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed. (Author)

Ninety children in third and fourth grade were assessed on a hierarchical class inclusion task. Scores were trichotomized, and children from each level were randomly assigned to one of three cueing conditions (no cues, two superordinate cues, six subordinate cues). Subjects were administered a recall task of categorized words and "new" words (paralogs). Significant effects for classification level and cueing condition were found for total recall on trial one, and for classification level, cueing condition, and their interaction, on trial four. Recall of paralogs on trial five was a function of classification level only. This study suggests that classification skills mediate both acquisition and recall of categorized words. (Author/AA)

Forty-eight pupils from grades one, three, and five participated in a study of the extent to which children are able to use their prior knowledge and expectancies to aid them in integrating verbal material and in drawing appropriate inferences. Six stories were constructed for each of four inference levels, and 11 questions were prepared for each story. Order of stories was counterbalanced across the three sessions in which they were administered to the children. The picture of language development which emerges from this study is that at first children learn to draw inferences from information which assumes or maps onto their prior knowledge; second, they learn to draw the necessary implications from arbitrary material; and third, they learn to draw the necessary implications from information which contradicts their prior world knowledge. Alternatively, development consists of learning to detach oneself from what is known and to constrain one's interpretation of linguistic information to what is explicitly stated, an ability which several authors have suggested appears to be a consequence of formal schooling. (AA)

Two experiments were conducted to assess the effects of elaborated presentation on noun-pair retention. A 2 x 2 factorial design was used with aural-verbal presentation (standard versus elaborated) and visual-pictorial presentation (standard versus elaborated). Subjects for one experiment were 64 second-grade children from a Mexican-American population of low socioeconomic status; those for the second experiment were 64 second-grade children from a white population of middle socioeconomic status. Subjects in both experiments learned 20 word-pairs by the study-test, paired-associate method. Retention was tested after a seven-day interval by the cued-recall method. Analyses of results indicated that aural-verbal and visual-pictorial elaboration facilitated the initial acquisition of noun pairs but did not influence long-term retention when the degree of original learning was equated. (Author/AA)

Implications of D. Ausubel's Theory of Meaningful Verbal Learning and its derivative, the Advance Organizer Model of Teaching, for deaf students are examined. Ausubel believes that complex intellectual processes (thinking, language, problem-solving, concept formation) are the major aspects of learning, and that primary emphasis should be placed on organization of experiences. These cognitive structures are hierarchically organized in terms of highly inclusive conceptual clusters, under which are subsumed less inclusive sub-concepts. Implications center on issues of philosophy, curriculum (including that the most general ideas should be presented first, followed by progressively differentiated material), and classroom teaching (including that advance organizers, such as illustrations, anologies, and concepts and terms already familiar to the learner should be used to strengthen cognitive structure and enhance retention of new information). An example of one such advance organizer used for an English composition class is given. (CL)

The study sought to determine whether children with unilateral cerebral lesions sustained either prenatally or postnatally suffer from deficts in learning and memory skills and whether these differentiate left-sided from right-sided lesions. The subjects, 69 children ranging in age from 6 to 17 were divided into four patient groups: hemoplegic Ss classified on the basis of hemispheric side and age at injury (i.e., prenatal vs. postnatal groups). As controls, 16 normal children were matched for age and IQ to 16 Ss in the prenatal left hemisphere group. Ss completed neurological and neuropsychological evaluations, measures of somatosensory and motor function, and assessment of visuo-perceptual memory skills. Among conclusions were that Ss with left cerebral lesions demonstrated verbal memory deficits compared with controls and Ss with right cerebral injuries; the magnitude of verbal memory deficits was greater in left cerebral lesions acquired after birth and as early as 2 months of age; and that, in general, results did not support the notion of plasticity and language sparing, suggesting that even with very early lesions of the left cerebral hemisphere there are persistent verbal memory and learning deficits. (CL)

Designed to help students observe and learn about how they individually represent experience and assign meaning, the exercises in this paper are intended for use in courses on intrapersonal communication or in course units on cognitive aspects of communication. The journal exercise is described in terms of its goals, approaches to it, and includes some sample entries from student journals. Coding analysis (focusing on how a stimulus is represented in memory and the attributes that play a role in retention and retrieval) is the subject of exercises dealing with verbal, semantic, and visual coding. The verbal coding exercise contains goals, approach, materials, and an analysis. The paper presents an introduction, instructions, and a discussion with the visual coding exercise. Depth of processing (the idea that the more deeply we process stimuli, the more likely we are to remember those stimuli) is the subject of an exercise focusing on structural versus semantic analysis, with an introduction, goals, approach, as well as all materials necessary for the exercise. A 10-item bibliography concludes the paper. (SR)

The Proceedings Journal contains 13 articles presented at the American Educational Research Association annual meeting as part of the Arts and Learning Special Interest Group program. Individual articles and their authors are: "A Descriptive and Analytical Study of Art Criticism Formats with Implications for Curricular Implementation" by Karen Hamblen; "Teaching and Learning in Art: The Acquisition of Art Knowledge in an Eighth Grade Class" by Nancy R. Johnson; "Art and Science in Technical/Rational Society" by Philip Steedman; "Preschool and Third Grade Children's Development of Drawing Strategies to Represent the Perspective of a Three-Dimensional Model" by Cynthia B. Colbert; "Observation Drawing: Changes in Children's Intention and Translation Methods Grades K-6" by Nancy R. Smith; "What Children Draw or Do Not Draw from What They Can or Cannot See: Implications for Teaching Art" by Jean C. Rush; "An Argument for Social and Moral Arts Curricula" by Susan W. Stinson; "Relationships between Writing and Drawing in First Grade Children" by ViLora Lyn Zalusky; "Constructing Musical Knowledge" by Gary Greenberg; "The Effect of Sustained and Nonsustained Tones on Adults' Representations of Simple Rhythms" by Carolyn Hildebrandt; "Observing Children's Metacognitive Structures through Music-Rhythm Processing" by Linda L. Kelley; "Spatial Relations in Stereotypic Representations" by Stuart Reifel and Elizabeth Strand; and "The Effect of Verbalization in Understanding Visual Art" by Judith S. Koroscik. References and the conference program are included. (TRS)

The experiment reported here investigated how verbalization of subtraction with regrouping operations influenced learning disabled students' self-efficacy and skillful performance, and also explored how effort attributional feedback affected these achievement behaviors. Learning disabled students (N=90) from grades 6 through 8 received training and solved problems over six 45-minute sessions. Some students verbalized aloud while solving problems (continuous verbalization); those in a second condition verbalized only during the first half of training (discontinued verbalization); students in a third condition did not verbalize (no verbalization). All students were periodically monitored and either received effort feedback during the first half of training, effort feedback during the second half of training, or no effort feedback. Continuous verbalization led to higher self-efficacy, and effort feedback promoted these achievement behaviors more than no feedback. Delivering effort feedback during the first half of training enhanced effort attributions. Findings support the notion that private speech can help regulate task performance. References, footnotes, and a data table are appended. (Author/CL)

This paper describes the Family Development Research Program, a program combining quality infant day care services with a home visitation component. Particular emphasis in this paper is on the day care center curriculum. Primary goals of the program are: (1) the design and maintenance of optimal environments which nourish an infant's development at different stages of growth, and (2) development of techniques for providing infant learning experiences and language lessons within the daily routines of caregiving. Goals of the home visitation component are to maximize family functioning, contribute to parental knowledge of child development, and foster parental involvement in their children's cognitive and psychosocial development. Included in this paper are the program's goals and rationale; criteria used for selecting participating infants; case findings and selection process; day programs for infants 6 to 15 months and 15 to 18 months old; the family style day program (or multi-age differentiated-environment groupings) for children 18 to 36 months old; staff qualifications and training; curriculum planning and activity guidelines; the infant curriculum; curriculum for the family style day program; processes used to generate curriculum activities; relationship of curriculum to child functioning; and measures used to assess family and parental functioning, teacher effectiveness and children's language, cognitive and social-emotional development. (SB)

The effects of arousal on verbal learning and memory are presently controversial. Investigators using different definitions of arousal, different tasks, and different methods have (as one would expect) produced different findings in the literature: (a) Arousal during acquisition leads to poor immediate but better delayed recall; (b) Arousal during acquisition sometimes facilitates immediate as well as delayed recall; (c) Arousal may lead to decrease in semantic clustering: (d) Arousal may facilitate recall for material in which "order" cues are salient: and (e) Arousal may lead to a convergence in decision criteria while at the same time increasing sensitivity for certain kinds of material. Instead of five separate explanations, the paper proposes to account for these effects by a single explanatory model based on the effects of arousal on memory organization. A model, based on changes in the way material is organized for retrieval is developed which views arousal as facilitating memory when recall is based on the physical characteristics of stimuli and hindering recall when memory depends on the semantic aspects of the stimuli. The implications of this model for the research findings decribed in the literature are discussed. (Author)

The purpose of this study was to determine whether children as young as second-graders could encode categorically within an abstract evaluative dimension. The study uses mode of stimulus presentation (auditory or visual) as an independent variable. The subjects were 40 white middle class children from grades 2, 4, and 6, who were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions. A control group received four trials of words from the same subjective category. Interference between trials followed Wicken's release from proactive interference paradigm and consisted of a color naming distractor task. An experimental group received three trials of words from the same subjective category with a shift to another category on the fourth trial. The interference remained the same. Subjects were asked to recall the words after a 15 second interference duration. Some of the results indicated that the experimental groups at each grade level show an increase in recall from trial 3 to trial 4. Significant main effects were found for overall recall performance between grades and across trials. The mode of presentation did not appear to have a differential effect on the children's encoding at any grade level. (MKM)

Forty-eight grade-three children and 48 grade-eight children were presented respectively with six- and eight-letter sequences for written free recall. The older children, as had adult subjects in previous studies, showed a greater tendency to recall serially with a four-letters-per-second presentation rate than with a half- or one-letter-per-second rate. Grade-three children, however, showed evidence of serialness in their recall with all three presentation rates. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that there is an auditory-specific store enduring for perhaps 15 to 20 seconds which holds relatively unprocessed material according to the initial temporal organization. Operation of this store would be most evident when the opportunity or ability to rehearse and recode are minimal, that is, in older children's and adults' recall with a fast presentation rate and in young children's recall with all rates. (Author)

Naming tasks were used in two studies to test for conceptual organization in young children by comparing the latencies for naming objects in primed vs. non-primed conditions. In the primed condition, a taxonomic category was primed by prior activation of a coordinate member of the same category. In Study 1, 54 kindergarten children were randomly assigned to a primed or non-primed condition. All subjects had to name as quickly as possible each of a series of five toy objects. Each of the first four was from a distinctly different semantic category. In the primed condition the fifth object was a member of the same taxonomic category as the fourth object. In the non-primed condition the fifth object was of a different semantic category from all the preceding objects. Results indicated that the mean latency was greater in the primed than in the non-primed condition. Study 2 attempted to replicate Study 1 using a within subjects design and a stronger priming manipulation to increase the strength of the effect. Subjects were 16 preschool and 2 kindergarten children. In the primed condition the fifth object in each series was from the same semantic category as the preceding two objects. All objects were from different categories in the non-primed condition. In both conditions a sixth object was added that was always from a different category than the fifth object. Again, the results indicated greater latencies for the primed condition. Three explanations of this hindrance effect are discussed: (1) a false set explanation, (2) a categorization decrement effect; and (3) a naming interference explanation. (Author/SB)

This paper reviews studies on cognitive processes that may mediate the development of early learning problems. Topics covered include auditory and visual discrimination deficits, integration of information from different modalities, the significance of attentional factors, contributions of memory factors, and the importance of cognitive style dimensions such as field dependence and reflectivity/impulsivity. These studies, which used high risk and control groups, each yielded a significant difference. High risk children manifested deficits in recall, in visual sequential memory, in attention, and in perceptial discrimination, and showed greater impulsivity in their cognitive styles than other children. Relationships among these psychological variables are discussed briefly, and it is suggested that further study is required to examine the link between reading performance and cognitive deficits. (GO)

The effects of five verbal elaboration conditions on the paired associate learning of 50 elementary-aged educable mentally retarded children were investigated. Four of the conditions, crossing functional and positional relations in familiar or unfamiliar events, were included in a two-factor design (type of relation x familiarity); the fifth (nonsense condition) was included as an outside control. Ten Ss were tested in each condition. The dominant finding was a significant interaction between type of relation and familiarity, with positional-unfamiliar elaborations being the least effective in the two-factor design. The nonsense condition produced the poorest performance levels across the five conditions, especially for Ss identified as being more severely retarded. (Author)

Recall lists were presented to 40 black lower class and 40 white middle class children in this experiment. The purpose of the study was to examine a possible explanation of the relatively poor performance of black and lower class children on tasks requiring abstract learning abilities. It was reasoned that the threshold for the production of abstract mediators necessary for tasks such as concept learning was, in part, a function of the child's familiarity with the verbal stimuli. The lower class black children were fourth, fifth, and sixth graders recruited from an inner city elementary school which was 97% black. The middle class children were fifth and sixth graders from an all white suburban elementary school. The task required learning a serial order or free recall 12 word list to a criterion of two correct, but not necessarily, consecutive trials. Words in one list were category instances rated most familiar by whites. A second list was comprised of instances of the same categories rated most familiar by blacks. Recall and clustering in free recall were hypothesized to be a function of familiarity rather than group membership. The interaction between list familiarity and social class ethnic group membership that was necessary to support the familiarity hypothesis was not obtained on measures of free recall and clustering. Although both groups clustered in free recall better with the white familiar list, a significant three way interaction indicated that clustering on familiar lists increased across trials. An opposite trend occurred on unfamiliar lists. (Author/AM)

Undergraduate students using an imagery mnemonic mediating technique involving "keywords" to learn definitions of thirty unfamiliar words performed better on a 1-week delayed comprehension test, on at least half of the definitions, than those who read and copied definitions. Mnemonic mediating strategies worked better than nonmediating strategies on both immediate and delayed occasions. The superiority of the mediating strategies was greater on the concrete than the abstract definitions. There were moderately large positive correlations between the degree to which participants in the mediating groups used the prescribed processing methods and comprehension test scores. (Author/GDC)

Social facilitation as a self-presentational display, and social performance impairment attributable to perceived public failure, are examined in a study of context effects in verbal learning. Female undergraduates (N=72) served as subjects with one male who served as an "audience." Performance data indicate that, consistent with the present analysis (but not with drive theories of social facilitation), the learning of simple paired-associate items is socially impaired when those items are embedded within a difficult task. An observer's presence does not impair complex verbal learning when complex items appear within an easy task. Questionnaire responses suggest a naturally-occurring confound between task complexity and perceived failure. (Author)

The effect of the amount of prior knowledge on the long-term retrieval of information is examined. In two studies, seventh and eighth grade students of average or above average reading ability learned passages to simulate materials from history textbooks (factual), from reading textbooks (narrative), and from science textbooks (conceptual). Students studied passages for 45 seconds, 90 seconds, or 3 minutes depending upon whether the passage was at a high, medium, or low linkage level (i.e., prior knowledge level), respectively. During each test period, students said back what they could remember from the passage and the experimenter gave feedback. The criterion for learning was all but one proposition correct. Students free recalled the passages immediately after learning, and after four weeks. Students' retrospective reports were filled with links to prior knowledge, many of their errors appeared to include partial retrieval of propositions, and the prior knowledge structures surrounding higher prior knowledge passages had more alternate retrieval pathways. In a third study, the conditions of the recall test were identical to those already described except for changes to group testing and to a one-week interval. Although images did not affect recall, prior related knowledge did. (RL)

The usefulness of the Preschool Preposition Test (PPT) as a cognitive screening and diagnostic tool for handicapped children is demonstrated through results of eight independent studies. The subjects were 354 children and youths, aged two to 20 years, with various handicaps: mentally retarded, autistic-like, moderately emotionally disturbed, severely emotionally disturbed, homeless institutionalized, and physically handicapped. The PPT showed statistically significant correlations with other cognitive measures including the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Columbia Mental Maturity Scale and Carrow Auditory Test of Language Comprehension. Ratings by teachers on the Classroom Behavior Description Checklist did not correlate with PPT scores, but ratings of mothers' stimulation and nurturance behavior did. When PPT mean scores for the handicapped children were compared with those of the normal standardization sample, scores for the handicapped children were lower at every chronological age except for the emotionally disturbed samples. The PPT has special value for testing otherwise untestable children on abstract thinking and spatial reasoning, for development of new prescriptive programs, and as an added dimension in decisions for special education placement. (Author/CP)

This program adapts the Think Aloud method, originally designed to assist young aggressive boys in achieving greater self-control, to improve problem-solving skills among first and second graders. Modeling of self-instructional verbalizations is used to teach children a systematic approach to analyzing a problem, planning an attack and evaluating outcomes. The classroom version concentrates on cognitive and academic problem situations. Fourteen randomly-assigned first- and second-grade classrooms received the Think Aloud program in one of three waves. All were pretested on the Raven Progressive Matrices, and children from each class were randomly assigned for retesting at the end of each wave. Fourteen regular classroom teachers learned to use the "Think Aloud" techniques for their entire classrooms. The process of modeling self-verbalizations was explained, demonstrated, and role-played in a preliminary session without pupils present. Teachers then observed a staff assistant introduce the program to the class. For one month, the regular teacher and staff assistant observed or taught Think Aloud to the class on alternate days. After teachers became comfortable with the program, they were encouraged to transfer the techniques from project materials to regular academic material. The presentation includes the program description and a brief video-tape of the program in action, a discussion of teaching it to regular classroom teachers, and results of cognitive test performance. (Author/LS)

Discussed is the language impairment of children with infantile autism. The speech patterns of autistic children, including echolalia, pronomial reversal, silent language, and voice imitation, are described. The clinical picture of the autistic child is compared to that of children with such other disorders as deafness, retardation, and developmental aphasia. The idea of an organic etiology for autism is briefly considered, and other possible explanations for the language impairment are examined. A brief outline of verbal imitation training is presented, using prompts and the operant conditioning paradigm for shaping. (Author/CL)

It is now possible to carry forward the work in visual languaging and visual literacy to create a model for language and for cognition. The central hypothesis is that visual sequences are gradually learned, perceived, and "read" by people, but especially by little children, much as languaging is learned, perceived, and read; the "readers" behave as if they are reading a visual language. The essential counterpart of this is that visual sequences are "written" (composed) much as languaging is written and "writers" (composers) behave as if they are writing visual language. There is evidence that the left hemisphere of the brain takes care of writing and printing and the right hemisphere with processing picture sequences. Once the right hemisphere is developed, its interrelationship with the left hemisphere verbal languaging skills can proceed toward cognitive and cultural goals that could not possibly be achieved with either set of languaging skills alone. This is the beginning of the true democracy of the intellect, the most exciting development in the history of man. (VT)

Overviews of schema theory, which focuses on the cognitive operations engaged in by the reader, and discourse analysis, which focuses on structural characteristics of the text itself, are presented in this paper. The first section explains the notion of cognitive schemata (patterns of expectations that are applied to incoming information) and discusses six essential constituents of schema theory: schema states; schema variables; instantiation; activation; episodic, semantic, and schematic memory; and high versus low integrity processing. It then presents insights into the verbal learning process that can be drawn from schema theory. The second section traces the roots of discourse analysis and discusses the following forms: cohesion analysis (which is closely associated with the surface structure of the text), propositional analysis (in which the text is analyzed in terms of semantic content rather than linguistic form), and story grammar (which attempts to define broader relations among broader segments of text than the other two techniques). (GT)

A battery of immediate memory tests was given to eight mentally retarded Down's Syndrome Ss, eight controls matched on chronological age (CA), and eight controls matched on mental age (MA). All Ss were required to identify both receptively and expressively 24 items from the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. There was no significant difference between the verbal and nonverbal recognition scores for any of the groups during either auditory or visual input; the CA controls were able to recall significantly more words than the MA controls, who in turn recalled significantly more words than the Down's group; however, when the task was shifted to auditory recognition, the CA controls again scored significantly higher than the MA controls but there was no longer a significant difference between the MA controls and the Down's group. (SBH)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differential effects on low and high verbal students of verbatim study questions adjunct to a text describing science concepts. The sample consisted of 217 eighth grade students enrolled in twelve Calgary (Alberta, Canada) schools. Materials developed for the study included an introduction to the experiment, a textual description of five fossil categories (ammonites, brachiopods, gastropods, pelecypods, and trilobites), 20 study questions, and a placebo passage for the control group. Students were administered a verbal ability test prior to the presentation of the instructional treatments. Subsequently, the students were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: (1) text plus 20 study questions, (2) text plus no study questions, and (3) placebo passage. Later the students were administered an achievement posttest consisting of a visual concept test requiring the students to identify 40 fossil specimens presented in a stratified random fashion. It was found that students who were low verbal performers and who were provided with the text and no study questions scored significantly higher on the posttest than did those low verbal learners who were provided with the text and study questions. Linear regression analysis, using the verbal ability test scores (predictive variable) and the posttest scores (dependent variable) substantiated an ATI-ordinal interaction hypothesis. In addition, the text-plus-20-questions group substantially outperformed the control group. The results of the study suggested that verbatim study questions adjunct to a science text constituted a dysfunctional instructional support system, particularly when given to lower verbal students. In contrast, higher verbal students circumvented or were unaffected by such questions. (Author/SLH)

A central theoretical issue is that of the cognitive status of imagery. Detractors emphasize the merely-sensory aspects while proponents emphasize the also-symbolic aspects. Examined with reference to this issue are the theories of Piaget and Bruner, recent studies of concept learning and representation, and studies related to the Craik and Lockhart levels of processing model. (Author)

The purpose of this study was to further investigate performance differences between reflective and impulsive subjects on a recognition memory task. Other researchers have proposed that these differences are based on visual analysis and that they are relatively independent of verbal processes. To test this contention, a sentence recognition task was presented either visually or auditorily to 20 reflective and 20 impulsive undergraduate subjects. Results indicated that verbal recognition memory is sensitive to both conceptual tempo and stimulus presentation mode. (Author)

The paper provides a theoretical framework for the inclusion of a verbal intelligence test as part of the psychodiagnostic assessment battery used with deaf children. Descriptions are provided for three selected sign language varieties being used in a study designed to examine performance of 30 deaf children (9-16 years old) on signed administrations of the verbal subtests of the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children--Revised (WISC-R). The three sign language varieties are illustrated by comparing selected verbal subtest items presented in signed English (sE), Pidgin Sign English-English (PSE-E), and Pidgin Sign English-American Sign Language (PSE-A). Preliminary results are reported, and the importance of cautious interpretation of verbal IQ scores for deaf children is stressed. It is suggested that the verbal scale of the WISC-R not be administered to deaf children under 9 years old. (Author/CL)

Thirty hearing impaired students (11-14 years old) participated in a study to measure classification principles using demonstration or display of labels containing relevant words or iconic signs. Three methods of teaching classificatory principles were employed: demonstration, verbal labels, or iconic labels. Analysis of mistakes made by Ss revealed that in each case the use of iconic signs guaranteed better results. Iconic signs allowed for a more precise definition and a better separation of a part from a larger whole than did verbal signs. (Author/CL)