Infants' Reliance on a Social Criterion for Establishing Word-Object Relations

The language children hear presents them with a multitude of co-occurrences between words and things in the world, and they must repeatedly determine which among these manifold co-occurrences is relevant. Social factors—such as cues regarding the speaker's referential intent—might serve as one guide to whether word-object covariation should be registered. In 2 studies, infants (15–20 months and 18–20 months in Studies 1 and 2, respectively) heard novel labels at a time when they were investigating a single novel object; in one case the label was uttered by a speaker seated within the infant's view and displaying concurrent attention to the novel toy (coupled condition), whereas in the other case the label emanated from a speaker seated out of the infant's view (decoupled condition). In both studies, subsequent comprehension questions indicated that infants of 18–20 months registered a stable link between label and object in the coupled condition, but not in the decoupled condition, despite the fact that covariation between label and object was equivalent in the 2 conditions. Thus, by 18–20 months children are inclined to establish a mapping between word and object only when a speaker displays signs of referring to that object.     

Project on scope,sequence, and coordination: A new synthesis for improving science education

The Project on Scope, Sequence, and Coordination of Secondary School Science (SS&C) is a major national project designed to reform science education, K-12. Based on research on learning science, the project includes provision for hands-on experience, sequencing over time at successively higher levels of abstraction, and taking account of student preconceptions. Associated with SS&C is a performance-based student assessment project which incorporates compact-disc interactive (CD-I) technology. The SS&C project and its assessment component were initiated by the author and have become projects of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education. Projects are underway in California, North Carolina, Iowa, Puerto Rico, Texas, and Alaska.     

Some evidence of growth and change in speech education in Illinois public high schools since 1919

Since the early part of this century, speech education in secondary schools has steadily increased. The evidence of such growth in Illinois is presented here.     

Towards safe and comfortable high-speed transportation infrastructure

In the past decades, we have witnessed the rapid development of high-speed transportation infra-structure, such as high-speed railways, urban subways, expressways, and airfields worldwide. As a major effort in transportation infrastructure development, China plans to     

The role of action research in the development of learning networks for entrepreneurs

Developing sustainable learning networks for entrepreneurs is the core objective of the Sustainable Learning Networks in Ireland and Wales (SLNIW) project. One research team drawn from the Centre for Enterprise Development and Regional Economy at Waterford Institute of Technology and the School of Management and Business from Aberystwyth University has contributed to the understanding of how to create sustainable business learning networks for entrepreneurs. The research findings are attributed to action research by the conduction of two separate cycles in the forum of research projects. The first cycle, called Female Entrepreneurs in Ireland and Wales, produced findings that were reflected on and investigated further by the research team through the establishment of the second cycle named SLNIW. This paper discusses the two action research cycles through the action sets of planning, action, observing and reflecting and the contribution of the development of understanding and practice of networking for entrepreneurs through the production of guidelines for establishing sustainable learning networks.