Learning Disability Quarterly

This study examined the effects of three prereading activities on learning disabled children's reading comprehension. Thirty-six children classified as learning disabled participated. The three prereading activities consisted of (a) a modified Directed Reading Activity, (b) a modified Concept Analysis Activity, and (c) a Worksheet Activity (control). To counterbalance for order of prereading activities and experimenter, a factorial/modified Latin-Square design was selected. Barrett's Taxonomy (1976) was used as a guide to develop the reading comprehension tests. Literal, inferential, evaluative, appreciative, and total test reading comprehension constituted the dependent measures. Repeated one-way analysis of variance and Newman-Keuls procedures were used to analyze the data.

The results, which replicated and substantiated a preliminary study (Sachs, 1981), indicate that evaluative reading comprehension is affected by both a modified Concept Analysis Activity and a modified Directed Reading Activity compared to the effect of a Worksheet Activity.

This study investigated the response of two different subgroups of learning disabled children to variations in study conditions as they prepared for a spelling test. The study conditions were: (a) free study, in which the children studied lists of words in any manner they chose; and (b) directed study, in which all children were required to engage in the same number of repetitive spellings of the word lists. The three groups of eight subjects each included a normal control group, a group of LD children with severe short-term memory problems, and a group of LD children with normal short-term memory performance. The directed study condition was found to have a significant effect on the spelling performance only of the LD children without short-term memory deficits. While the results illustrate that some LD children's spelling performance may be improved by simply altering the way they approach tasks, the findings also suggest that other LD children may need a different kind of educational support.

The Learning Disability/Reading Disability Questionnaire constructed by the researchers was used to investigate and compare diagnostic and remedial populations and practices among 333 professionals in the following groups: 74 self-contained learning disabilities specialists, 141 resource learning disabilities specialists, and 118 reading resource specialists. Results are presented here regarding characteristics of remedial populations, prevalent use of instructional time, and usage of remedial methods and materials. The investigation demonstrated that both learning disabilities and reading professionals remediated language-disordered populations and displayed a similar profile regarding use of instructional time. Both professions employed reading methods rather than process methods. A paucity of study skill methods was found to be used by both professions. Implications for the fields are noted.

Notetaking is an important skill for secondary students in content-area classes. While most research on notetaking indicates its usefulness for effective recall of academic information, little literature exists on notetaking techniques for learning disabled adolescents, who often have problems organizing information. This article suggests two notetaking formats for learning disabled adolescents, as well as general instructional guidelines for notetaking. Since notetaking is not a singular process, it must be coordinated with other areas such as listening and study/test-taking strategies. Finally, notetaking is viewed as an individualized, active process on the part of students.

The purpose of this study was to compare the interactions of learning disabled (LD), behavior-disordered (BD), and nonhandicapped students. The interaction of 15 pupils from each diagnostic group and their peers, teachers, and classroom aides were observed by means of a behavior observation instrument. The observation system was designed to monitor (a) frequency of 14 target behaviors, (b) direction of the interaction (i.e., given to or received from), and (c) status of the party involved in the interaction (i.e., peer, teacher, aide). The results indicated that BD and LD students emitted significantly more negative statements to teachers than did regular education students. The teachers of the three groups of students did not differ in positive and negative statements directed to students; however, BD teachers emitted significantly more neutral statements to their students than did LD and regular teachers. Finally, the three groups did not differ in types of statements emitted. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for current educational practice.

This article reports on a study of the instructional ecology of resource rooms and regular classrooms for LD students. Eight students were observed on 53 events in 10-second intervals for two complete days of classroom instruction. Comparisons were made of how these students spent their time in resource and regular rooms. In general, opportunities for differentiated instruction were available to the LD students in the resource rooms (e.g., instruction in reading was more individualized). However, no practical differences were noted in the amount of time students were actively engaged in instruction in the two settings. Overall, in both settings, LD students were actively engaged in responding to academic tasks for a very short time (29 minutes per day in resource rooms, 19 minutes per day in regular classrooms).

This paper reports on two experiments which examined the linguistic and metacognitive aspects of the communication process in normally achieving and learning disabled children.

In the first experiment, 15 normally achieving and 30 learning disabled children were individually taught a board game. Results showed that in communicating with a partner, learning disabled children were less aware of sociolinguistic strategy and used fewer planfulness strategies than their normally achieving peers. Moreover, they used substantially fewer tag questions, adverbs, and prepositional phrases. These results confirmed previous research findings on learning disabled children's communication problems.

In the second experiment, 15 of the learning disabled children were trained to use sociolinguistic strategies of planfulness for one half hour a day for three days. The remaining 15 LD subjects engaged in an irrelevant task. Posttests followed training. To test for maintenance and generalization of learned skills, the trained group was asked to teach the board game and another game to a peer and a first grader four days after the posttest.

Results indicated that training increased learning disabled children's sociolinguistic awareness and their use of sociolinguistic strategies of planfulness. Interestingly, the trained group's language increased in complexity after training. While use of pragmatic strategies was maintained, generalization of the trained skills and of the changes in linguistic complexity was not observed. Results suggest the need to continue research on learning disabled children's language problems and the importance of incorporating self-regulatory strategies in training programs designed to improve learning disabled children's communication skills.

Problem-behavior rating scale data on elementary-aged learning disabled and normal boys were factor analyzed according to the Quay and Peterson (Note 1) procedures. Somewhat different factors were identified for normal and learning disabled groups. The discussion focuses on the implications of the findings for a current issue in child psychopathology — hyperactivity as distinct from other conduct problems — and for classifying youngsters' behavior and emotional problems.

Noelting's (1980a, 1980b) three parallel instruments on proportional reasoning—two presenting problem-solving tasks in the ratio and division interpretations of fractions and one presenting the tasks in the purely symbolic form of numerical fractions—were administered to 6 female and 41 male learning disabled students, grades four through eight. Performances on the instruments were then compared to the performances of 120 non-learning disabled students in grades five through nine of the same school district. The purpose of the study was to determine whether learning disabled students differed in their development of proportional reasoning and whether their disability was in the use of symbols and language and not in their ability to solve proportional problems. Developmental scalograms, PPR>0.93, resulted in support of the hypothesis that the proportional reasoning abilities of the learning disabled student are developmental and thus not unlike those of the non-learning disabled student. A comparison of the three means for the two groups revealed a reversal in performance with the learning disabled students more successful at problem solving and the non-learning disabled students more successful at the purely symbolic form of numerical fractions. Unlike the non-learning disabled students, the learning disabled students' inability to express a strategy did not indicate an inability to solve the problem.

Diagnostic procedures used to identify children (grades K-6) with learning disabilities in 14 school districts were studied and compared. The degree of uniformity in procedures for initial referral, testing, and diagnostic criteria, as well as differences in the selection of testing instruments by various districts were examined. Information was gathered through individual interviews with school personnel involved in the assessment of learning disabled children within each district. Although some similarities existed between districts, uniformity was lacking in important areas such as test selection, extent of testing, and cutoff scores on intelligence and other tests. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the reliability of diagnoses across districts, as well as their meaning for researchers in the field.

A significant relationship between academic achievement and peer popularity has long been established. Nonetheless, the role of achievement in mediating social differences between learning disabled children and their nondisabled peers remains unclear. The goal of this research was to clarify the contribution of academic achievement to learning disabled children's social competence. Third and fourth-grade LD boys were compared to a group of low-achieving, third and fourth graders matched on sex, race, grade, classroom and reading achievement. No significant differences were found between these two groups in terms of levels of classroom acceptance, social knowledge, and social behavior as rated by their regular classroom teachers. Likely variables accounting for these results are discussed as well as directions for future research.

Efficient reading instruction has become of interest to researchers operating within an applied behavior analysis framework. For older learning disabled students, the lack of functional reading skills restricts acquisition of content subjects in the mainstream. One aspect of teaching reading is determining the skills on which to focus instructional time. Two frequently taught reading skills are oral reading and reading comprehension. Previous research has investigated the effects of reinforcement of one skill and the indirect effects upon the other. The present study explored this relationship further by having subjects read material at two levels of difficulty in a multi-element design. Results indicated that previous studies may have underestimated the effects of increasing oral reading rates upon comprehension. Guidelines for oral reading rate criteria are suggested.