Journal of Learning Disabilities

A comprehensive approach to assessment and treatment of severe developmental speech and language disorders is discussed based on clinical experience with 69 children between 2 1/2 and 7 years of age. Assessment involves the integration of many variables, including differentiation between linguistic competence versus performance, diagnosis, familial and environmental factors, and pragmatics. A framework is presented that distinguishes therapy goals from therapy styles. The three possible goals are elimination or alleviation of causal factors, increase of interpersonal language interaction, and treatment of specific linguistic problems. These goals can be achieved within the context of three possible therapy styles: structured formal therapy, directed stimulation in play, and free play. The decision regarding choice of goals and styles is based on an integrative assessment, with the result that the treatment plan is appropriately designed for each individual.

This study is a comparative analysis of grade equivalent and standard scores on the 1976 and 1978 revised editions of the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT). A previously identified learning disabled sample is utilized. When using standard scores, there were no significant differences between the 1976 and 1978 WRAT for all three subtests. When using grade equivalent scores, two of the three subtests indicated significant mean differences. The comparison indicates consistency of direction for all three subtests, with 1978 Level 1 yielding higher performance and 1978 Level 2 yielding lower performance. It is argued again that standard scores are the more appropriate representation of functioning when considering learning disability needs.

The advantages and disadvantages of grade equivalents as indexes of academic achievement are discussed. One of the major drawbacks of grade equivalents is a lack of information regarding variability (viz., standard deviations) for different age groups. A method isproposed in which z scores, percentile tanks, or stanines could be used to provide grade equivalents. This approach eliminates several of the deficiencies associated with most grade equivalents while at the same time providing an index that has a known standard deviation.

This study investigated the removal of black English dialect features from the error scores of three oral reading tests—the Gray Oral Reading Test, the Gilmore Oral Reading Test, and the Spache Diagnostic Reading Scales. The 40 children in the sample population (20 control children matched by age and sex with 20 children identified by the school as learning disabled) were given all three tests. Each test was scored first using test manual criteria and then rescored using those criteria but eliminating from the error count any dialect miscue. On all three tests, LD children scored lower than control children. Also, the effect of removing dialect miscues as errors caused an overall increase in reading scores on all three tests. On the Gray and Spache tests, but not on the Gilmore test, control children benefited more from the removal of dialect responses as errors than LD children. Additionally, the results indicated that dialect had a greater impact on the scores of the Gilmore than it did on the Gray and Spache tests.

Third-grade learning disabled students (N = 72) were chosen from eight public schools and were assigned randomly to one of two treatment groups or a control group. The first treatment group received training in attending behaviors by a direct instruction method. The second group of students was exposed to modeling of the attending behaviors but received no other formal training. Immediately following the training session, students were administered three tasks that are commonly used as indexes of selective attention. The group receiving the instructional program performed significantly better on two of the three tasks. Results are discussed in terms of applied implications and future investigations.

Learning disabled children were subgrouped according to etiology: neurocognitively impaired and neurocognitively intact. The two groups were found to be intellectually different from one another, as the impaired scored much lower on a general intelligence test than the intact. In addition, the impaired appeared to have a specific cognitive deficit, as they differed from the intact on the Block Design subtest when IQ was controlled through a difference of differences technique. Nonetheless, neither Block Design nor general intelligence was strongly related to reading deviation, though there was a suggestion of a relationship between Verbal IQ and reading within the impaired group. Despite the finding that the impaired group suffers from both global and specific intellectual deficits, it must be posited that nonintellective factors also much affect school performance. IQ and Block Design do not explain failure to read in either group. These findings and conclusions, it must be cautioned, pertain to abnormal populations.

This study investigated organized strategies and self-checking behaviors in selecting retrieval cues in gifted, normal-achieving and learning disabled children. The results indicated that compared to the others, LD children lacked self-checking skills. Moreover, they were less exhaustive than the others in their selective search of retrieval cues. However, they did use some form of organized strategy in selecting the retrieval cues. Such organized strategy appears to be less efficient than that of gifted children. Additionally, unlike the gifted, both normal-achieving and LD children failed to choose retrieval cues of maximal use in aiding recall. The results also indicated that prior recall of the story resulted in all children choosing more items of most thematic importance. Generally, the results were taken to support Torgesen's conceptualization of LD children as inactive learners.

Little information is available on the levels of basic living skills of learning disabled adolescents. Using direct observation techniques, this study analyzed the differences in levels of occupational skills between LD youths and their non-LD peers. The results showed low levels of employment-related skills for both groups of high school adolescents. However, the non-LD high school students performed significantly better on the job-related skills than their LD peers. These differences were more marked for nonsocial interaction skills than for social skills. These findings suggest the need for methods of teaching LD youths the skills of finding and retaining employment.

A review of research examines the relationship between visual perceptual skills and reading achievement using meta-analysis to integrate statistically the results from 161 studies. A total of 1,571 correlation coefficients were collected and aggregated across eight visual perceptual skills, six reading abilities, three grade levels, and three subject groups. Additionally, a correlation matrix was constructed and used for a factor analysis, cannonical correlation analysis, and step-wise multiple regression analysis descriptive of the relationship among and between visual perceptual skills, intelligence, and reading achievement variables. The findings suggested that visual perception is an important correlate of reading achievement, but the proportion of explained variance in reading skills was contingent on the combination of visual and reading variables considered. It was concluded that visual perceptual skills should be included in the complex of factors predictive of reading achievement.