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Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children are more at risk than hearing children for developing cognitive deficits despite universal newborn hearing screening, early intervention, early input of sign language, and pediatric cochlear implantation. DHH children and adolescents may exhibit cognitive differences due to differences in perception and language modality. They may also experience an elevated risk of developing cognitive deficits due to periods of linguistic and cognitive deprivation and periods of chronic stress and fatigue. This chapter describes the possible causes for cognitive deficits of DHH children and the consequences for learning, both direct (because of cognitive overload) and indirect (because of behavior problems). Subsequently, the chapter outlines the various ways in which cognitive deficits may be accommodated through preventive measures, structured instruction, and specific interventions. The chapter concludes that, in all areas, there is first and foremost a need for more well-constructed effect studies. At the same time, application and further evaluation of the few available well-designed interventions are highly recommended.

During the past several decades, achievement goal theory has inspired much research into the direction, strength, and quality of individuals’ achievement strivings and of associated cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement. Through relentless debate and conceptual evolution, the theory has embraced many alternative perspectives and novel methodologies and remains as one of the most relevant theories of achievement motivation in the classroom. In this chapter, we first survey major developments in the definitions, models, and conceptualizations of achievement goals and unresolved issues that require continued attention. We then introduce several prominent trends in contemporary achievement goal research, followed by emerging questions for future achievement goal research. Despite its long-lasting contributions to the field of educational psychology, we believe achievement goal theory has now reached its critical juncture. The courses of development in the next few years may determine the theory’s longevity as a viable account of human motivation, especially for children and adolescents in achievement settings. We believe the theory can take yet another step forward to maximizing its educational implications by carefully streamlining the findings across different frameworks and taking stock of various recent debates.

The demands of literacy tasks change appreciably after students have mastered the basics of reading words accurately and with reasonable automaticity. At about age 10 reading becomes a tool for acquiring information, understanding a variety of points of view, critiquing positions, and reasoning. The results of international and US assessments show that many students who succeed at early reading tasks struggle with these new developmental challenges, focusing attention on the instructional needs of adolescent readers. Commonly used approaches to comprehension instruction in the postprimary grades, such as teaching reading comprehension strategies, do not adequately respond to the multiple challenges adolescent readers face. One such challenge is the need to acquire discipline-specific ways of reading, writing, and thinking, often from teachers who are themselves insufficiently aware of how reading literature differs from reading science or history. We argue that appropriate attention in instruction to discipline-specific literacy practices, to maintaining an authentic purpose for assigned literacy tasks, and to the role of focused discussion as a central element in teaching comprehension would improve reading outcomes and would revolutionize current theories about the nature of reading comprehension.

Advising students for postgraduate studies in psychology is an activity with which most faculty members in psychology are comfortable and, often, enjoy; however, when students approach their faculty members for advice or letters of recommendation for graduate school opportunities outside of psychology, are faculty really prepared? The goal of this chapter is to give direction and hints to help faculty prepare and support their students who decided to pursue graduate opportunities outside the field of psychology. This chapter offers: (a) a discussion of planning to maximize the undergraduate curricular and extracurricular experiences; (b) a review of skills, attributes, and characteristics deemed desirable by graduate programs, and (c) discussion of student as teacher in the application process. Where possible and appropriate, examples and literature from other disciplines (e.g., business, medicine) are provided.

This article reviews the topics of affect, motivation, working memory, and their relationships to mathematics learning and performance. The underlying factors of interest, motivation, self-efficacy, and maths anxiety, as well as an approach concerning people’s beliefs about fixed versus malleable intelligence, can be grouped into an approach and an avoidance constellation of attitudes and beliefs, with opposite relationships to outcome measures of learning and mastery in maths. This article then considers the research on working memory, showing it to be central to arithmetic and maths processing, and also the principle mental component being disrupted by affective and emotional reactions during problem solving. After discussing the disruptive effects of maths anxiety, choking under pressure, and stereotype threat, the article closes with a brief consideration of how these affective disruptions might be minimized or eliminated.

African American English (AAE) is a major American dialect. Recent research has focused on student patterns of AAE feature usage and found important relationships between AAE and reading achievement. This chapter provides background information on the nature of dialects and then focuses specifically on AAE, identifying the major features that characterize child discourse. Intrinsic student factors and extrinsic influences on feature production are discussed as well. An important influence on AAE feature production is style shifting: the changes a speaker makes to his or her speaking patterns in response to differences in the communication context. The chapter will discuss recent research that shows an inverse relationship between AAE feature production and reading achievement, and the mounting evidence that a student’s ability to style shift from AAE to Standard American English in literacy tasks is positively related to reading achievement. A final section of the chapter identifies needed directions for future research.

This chapter reviews well-being programs taught to young people in schools evaluating their benefits and downsides. It then considers the application of positive psychology theories to wider teaching and learning processes. Findings on self-determination theory, emotional intelligence, positive emotions, and theories of self-regulation, flow, and humor are applied to aspects of the learning environment including behavior management, lesson design, and assessment feedback in ways that promote student resilience and increase student learning. The chapter describes specific classroom practices teachers and educators can use to increase useful emotions in their classroom. The chapter ends with a warning about the potential dangers of inappropriately increasing self-esteem or positive emotions.

This article reviews recent research exploring children’s abilities to perform approximate arithmetic with non-symbolic and symbolic quantities, and considers what role this ability might play in mathematics achievement. It has been suggested that children can use their approximate number system (ANS) to solve approximate arithmetic problems before they have been taught exact arithmetic in school. Recent studies provide evidence that preschool children can add, subtract, multiply, and divide non-symbolic quantities represented as dot arrays. Children can also use their ANS to perform simple approximate arithmetic with non-symbolic quantities presented in different modalities (e.g. sequences of tones) or even with symbolic representations of number. This article reviews these studies, and consider whether children’s performance can be explained through the use of alternative non-arithmetical strategies. Finally, it discusses the potential role of this ability in the learning of formal symbolic mathematics.

Across a variety of languages, many words comprise more than one meaning unit, or morpheme. In the present chapter, reading studies employing readers’ eye movement registration are reviewed that examine how such polymorphemic words are identified in sentence context. The reviewed studies have examined how compound words, derived words, and inflected words are identified in sentence context. Studies are also reviewed that have investigated whether the meanings of polymorphemic words are constructed out of the meanings of their components. More generally, it is concluded that polymorphemic words are identified during reading using both whole-word representations available in the mental lexicon (the holistic route) as well as accessing the word identity via the component meanings (the decomposition route). Moreover, word length plays a significant role in modulating the relative dominance of the two access routes, with the decomposition route being more dominant for long polymorphemic words.

Neuroimaging has significantly contributed to our understanding of human learning by tracking the neural correlates underlying the acquisition of new expertise. Studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) suggest that the acquisition of arithmetic competence is reflected in a decrease of activation in frontal brain regions and a relative increase of activation in parietal brain regions that are important for arithmetic processing. Activation of the angular gyrus (AG) is related to fact learning, skilled retrieval, and level of automatization. fMRI investigations extend the findings of cognitive studies showing that behavioural differences between trained and untrained sets of items, between different arithmetic operations, and between different training strategies are reflected by specific activation patterns. fMRI studies also reveal inter-individual differences related to arithmetic competence, with low performing individuals showing lower AG activation when answering calculation problems. Importantly, training attenuates inter-individual differences in AG activation. Studies with calculation experts suggest that different strategies may be used to achieve extraordinary performance. While some experts recruit a more extended cerebral network compared with the average population, others use the same frontoparietal network, but more efficiently. In conclusion, brain imaging studies on arithmetic learning and expertise offer a promising view on the adaptivity of the human brain. Although evidence on functional or structural modifications following intervention in dyscalculic patients is still scarce, future studies may contribute to the development of more efficient and targeted rehabilitation programmes after brain damage or in cases of atypical numerical development.

Excellent teachers embody several characteristics that distinguish them from their colleagues. Definitions of excellence are remarkably consistent across students, professors, alumni, and administrators, evidencing two major factors: the interpersonal and technical aspects of teaching. However, because excellent teaching is a multifaceted concept, no two individuals will display excellence in the same manner. This chapter offers concrete advice about how to develop teaching excellence through knowing your subject matter; developing and refining your communication skills; increasing the value you place on student learning; tinkering with your teaching; learning more about how students learn; maintaining high, but fair academic standards; establishing rapport with your students; becoming enthusiastic about your subject matter; and finally, assessing your teaching.

A sizable proportion of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) people are multilingual, either through use of language that involves more than one modality (i.e., signing and speaking/listening) or the use of two or more languages within the same modality. There is a constantly evolving body of research that describes cognitive differences between monolinguals and multilinguals, the majority of which examines people without hearing loss who use more than one spoken language. Much less attention has been paid to cognitive differences associated with multilingualism in people who are DHH and people who use signed languages. This chapter briefly summarizes research describing differences in cognition between monolingual and multilingual oral language users without hearing loss, and then focuses on research comparing bimodal bilinguals (both DHH and hearing) with monolinguals and/or spoken-language multilinguals. Areas of cognition that are discussed include language processing, inhibition and selective attention, task switching, and working memory. In general, findings were inconclusive or inconsistent regarding a bilingual advantage or disadvantage in cognitive processes for bimodal bilinguals. However, the evidence base was limited and further research is essential if stronger conclusions are to be drawn.

This essay was written by three psychology faculty members with extensive experience as chairs of departments of psychology of different types. It focuses on information critical to deciding whether to be a chair and how to be an effective chair. Topics include different types of chairs (chair vs. head), the roles and responsibilities of the position, the unique factors relevant to chairing a psychology department, variations in the job as a function of the type of institution in which the department is embedded (a liberal arts college, a comprehensive university, or a research university), tips for being an effective academic unit leader, and when and how to transition out of the chair role. In addition, the authors provide lists of resources that may be useful to chairs, including organizations, conferences, publications, periodicals and book series, and other resources.

A changing perspective on education for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students in the 21st century must incorporate a focus on digital literacy and computational thinking. Digital literacy refers to the skills required to digitally work with information (i.e., communicate, disseminate, create, manage), to use Internet-based tools (i.e., web browsers, Internet search engines, email), and to present information clearly (e.g., using spreadsheets). Computational thinking refers to problem-solving using cognitive processes like representing and organizing data, working with algorithms, analyzing information, and generalizing solutions that can be applied to multiple areas of learning. In an era when many hearing digital natives use digital tools for complex activities at school and home, there is a noticeable void of similar behaviors by DHH students. This chapter explores issues surrounding the need for a changed perspective for the 21st century and a rationale for including digital literacy and computational thinking in deaf education classrooms.

This chapter considers the normal development of children’s reading comprehension, as well as individual differences and specific difficulties related to children’s reading comprehension. Most of the studies in this area have been carried out with children who are learning to read in an alphabetic orthography, and this chapter reflects that bias. The chapter outlines the development of various processes that are related to reading comprehension in the early school years. The authors also consider the relationship between these processes and reading comprehension ability. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the implications for research and practice during the early school years.

This chapter reviews empirical findings about children’s spelling development, with a focus on alphabetic writing systems. The chapter describes the extent to which research evidence accords with the predictions made by three prominent models of spelling development: phonological, constructivist, and statistical learning. Within this framework, models are evaluated for their ability to both describe children’s spelling across development and to explain developmental change by specifying underlying mechanisms. The review offers insight into the current state of our knowledge of children’s spelling development, gained through years of impressive empirical research. This work has furthered our understanding of children’s developing sensitivity to spelling regularities based on the phonology, morphology, and orthography of words. Yet the review also highlights a clear need for further research in order to clarify points of disagreement between existing models; this pursuit will benefit from spelling research that covers a greater diversity of writing systems.

Children in the bottom quartile of mathematics achievement are at high risk for underemployment in adulthood. These children include the roughly 7% of students with a mathematical learning disability (MLD) and another 10% of students with persistent low achievement (LA) that is not attributable to intelligence. The poor mathematics achievement of children who compose groups of MLD and LA students appears to be related to one or several deficits; specifically, (1) a delay in the development and poor fidelity of the system for representing approximate magnitudes; (2) difficulty mapping Arabic numerals, number words, and rational numbers onto associated quantities; (3) poor conceptual understanding of some arithmetic concepts; (4) developmental delay in the learning of mathematical procedures; and (5) difficulty committing basic arithmetic facts to or retrieving them from long-term memory. Children with MLD also have concurrent working memory deficits that exacerbate their mathematics-specific deficits and delays.

In this scoping article, the authors summarize the extant research on students’ achievement motivation and classroom summative assessment events. The purpose is to understand the ways that different assessment tasks and assessment-related conditions can send motivational messages to students. The authors begin by summarizing two frameworks to illustrate how motivation operates in classroom assessment events. Then the authors present their findings organized into three major categories: overview of articles reviewed, task-focused investigations, and conditions-focused investigations. The goal is to provide a rich description of what is known in the field about relations among assessment tasks, assessment condition, and students’ motivation. A recurring theme in the article is the significance of the entire assessment event, from design to implementation to understanding how classroom assessments send motivational messages to students. In response, the authors call for greater collaboration across fields of educational research so that the integration of assessment and motivation theory can be intentional and lead to the development of sound recommendations for practice.

This chapter examines the role of Clinical and Counseling Psychology courses in the undergraduate curriculum and offers a conceptual framework for designing courses that promote cognitive and affective development in the student. The chapter uses Wiggins and McTighe’s (2006) multifaceted model of understanding to address the specific goals and challenges of courses in Clinical and Counseling Psychology. Rather than giving an overview of the extensive literature on isolated classroom activities and assignments, the focus of this chapter is on two integrative pedagogical approaches. Specifically, the chapter articulates how focusing on evidence-based practice and incorporating service-learning can be used to target multiple facets of understanding in students. Using this framework, the chapter provides examples and guiding principles for constructing specific learning activities, addressing ethical considerations, and exploring diversity issues.