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The effects of augmented feedback on perceptions of ability (SPA), practice behaviors, and performance during motor skill instruction of a novel task were investigated. Fourth-grade students (N = 103) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (a) no feedback; (b) motivational feedback; (c) task feedback; or (d) motivation and task feedback. They then practiced simple and complex cupstacking skills. On a relatively simple task, the type of feedback did not have a significant effect on children's SPA, practice behaviors, or performance; but on a more complex task, differential effects of feedback were evident. Results indicate that informational feedback is an important factor in facilitating student engagement, fostering positive perceptions of ability, and ultimately improving performance on a challenging task.

Children with speci c language impairment (SLI) may have inef cient memory or memory management for auditory and visual representation systems. This study sought to determine if strategy training would create any residual enhancement of these memory management systems. Data revealed that immediately following intervention, elementary students taught to use a rehearsal strategy and those taught to use a rehearsal = visualization strategy made signi cant gains over a traditional language therapy group on a standardized test of following directions. However, only the rehearsal = visualization group retained its gains over the traditional group eight months after the intervention. These ndings support the long-term ef cacy of systematic training via rehearsal = visualization to increase the ability of children with SLI to follow verbal directions.

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When imitation skills are not present in young children, speech and language skills typically fail to emerge. There is little information on practices that foster the emergence of imitation skills in general and verbal imitation skills in particular. The present study attempted to add to our limited evidence base regarding accelerating the development of speech/language in young children who have failed to achieve expected language milestones. Imitation therapy (Zedler, 1972) was utilized for five non-verbal 18-19-month-old children to determine if imitative behavior in the form of sound production could be initiated and increased. Treatment was administered until children reached criteria for consistent imitative sound productions. Following 8-9 weeks of therapy, all five children exhibited significant increases in both the number of vocalizations and the variety of phonemes produced, and they demonstrated regular spontaneous verbal imitation and emergence of phonetically consistent forms. Imitation therapy appears to be a promising practice that merits further investigation.

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