This experiment, like others in a series by the present authors, examines attentional processes in learning disabled youngsters. This particular study is controversial in that it proposes that learning disabled children may be capable of better verbal learning than they demonstrate -they simply fail to produce, though they allegedly possess the capability. Comments regarding this "production deficiency hypothesis" are invited. -G.M.S. To investigate the effects of reinforcement and response cost on the selective attention and verbal rehearsal performance of learning disabled children, a modified version of HagensCentral-Incidental task was administered to 48 children enrolled in a private residential school for children with learning disabilities. A rein-*A version of this paper was presented at the 84th Annual American Psychological Association Convention in Washington, D.C., Sept. 6, 1976. forcement condition facilitated both selective attention and verbal rehearsal (as measured by primacy effect), but a response cost condition did not. The results were discussed in relation to a "production deficiency' in learning disabled children.S elective attention -the ability to attend to relevant and ignore irrelevant information -has been found to increase dramatically in normal children at about 12 to 14 years of age

Many African states have been operating under tight structural-adjustment restrictions for close to ten years. The policies of the International Monetary Fund make heavy demands on public-sector capability and political leadership, particularly as regards pricing and trade practices, banking and finance, economic monitoring and data analysis, macro and sectoral planning, as well as policy formulation, initiation, and implementation. The aim is to create a very strong private sector operating under market conditions, and an effective, though not necessarily large, public sector committed to rational, strategic economic growth. For many African régimes there also will be increasing motivation towards both decentralisation and pluralism. In short, the post-structural adjustment state, rather than withering away, needs to be selectively strengthened and to have an increasingly sophisticated capacity to manage development activities at both the national and local levels.1