Four papers on perceptual processes, by (1) W. Ahlbrand; (2) E. Elenbogen, S. Sperry and G. A. Thompson; (3) B. Randhawa; and (4) T. Sticht and D. Glasnapp, which were presented at the 55th annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, are critiqued here. Emphasis is upon the relevance of the papers to issues in perceptual development. It is suggested that word perception may be a direct process rather than the resultant of phoneme or letter discriminations. The importance of knowledge about perceptual development for education is noted. (Author/AMM)