Visual discrimination deficits of reading-disabled children: sex artifact?

Several theorists have suggested that deficits in visual discrimination play an etiological role in the development of reading deficits in children who are diagnosed as learning-disabled. Supporting this theory, a number of studies have shown that disabled readers make more errors on visual discrimination tasks than do good readers. The present study, however, suggests that those findings may have been due to a sex-difference artifact. Thirty-six 8- and 9-year-old good readers and reading-disabled children of both sexes responded to 40 matching items under untimed conditions. Males made more errors than females, but overall, reading-disabled children made no more errors than good readers. These findings, along with a reanalysis of previous studies, suggest that because reading disabilities are more common in males, evidence construed as supporting a visual discrimination hypothesis may have been an artifact of a sex difference in studies in which sex was not controlled.

The functional independence of response latency and accuracy: implications for the concept of conceptual tempo

Kagan (1965a) developed the concepts of impulsive and reflective cognitive styles (conceptual tempo) to add a new dimension to the understanding and assessment of human intelligence. Although latency (the principal component of conceptual tempo) is negatively correlated with academic performance, it may not be necessary to modify latency in order to modify accuracy.. With 40 disadvantaged preschool children, it was found that reinforcing long latencies in choice tasks did not increase accuracy and vice versa, and that reinforcing both long latencies and accuracy was no more effective than reinforcing accuracy alone. These data were used to question the usefulness of the construct of conceptual tempo.

Facilitation of the acquisition and retention of sight-word vocabulary through token reinforcement

Two groups of second-grade children were taught to read orally 30 words and were later tested for retention. One group of subjects received verbal consequences, while the other group received verbal consequences plus token reinforcement. The token group reached criterion in significantly fewer trials and correctly read significantly more words on the retention tests after the longer retention intervals.

Feedback in classroom behavior modification: effects on the target and her classmates

A behavior modification program that employed feedback with no additional contingencies was initiated and withdrawn in an ABAB design on a target child within a classroom. The disruptive behavior of the target child as well as that of her peers was monitored. Additionally, the sociometric status of the target child was recorded. Finally, the positive and negative comments made to the target by her teacher and her peers were related to initiation and withdrawal of the feedback contingency. Results indicate that (1) feedback alone may be an effective behavior modification procedure, (2) the disruptive behavior of the target's classmates changed, even though they were not directly treated, (3) sociometric status of the target was altered by behavioral contingencies, (4) positive comments by classmates to the target increased, and (5) negative comments from the teacher to the target child decreased.