Journal of Learning Disabilities

The column this month is devoted primarily to an in-depth review of the Goodman & Burke Reading Miscue Inventory.

The Reading Miscue Inventory, as one of the more radical departures from traditional reading assessment, is compared with a more traditional Individual Reading Inventory, the Durrell Analysis of Reading Difficulty. The basic premises of Miscue Analysis recast assessment from error counting to analyzing the context of a departure from the expected response of the text, and further to determine the relationship of that departure to the language and concept repertoire of the reader. Since they also carry implications for the reconsideration of the role of the teacher in reading instruction, and for viewing reading behaviors as “good” or “bad,” the bases upon which it has been developed will be of interest to practitioners and researchers in learning disabilities, as well as to parents whose children are placed in remedial programs designed to ameliorate reading problems.

A short review of a program by Hatten & Hatten that is designed to bridge the gap between the language clinician's program and functional use of language in the natural environment follows. Last is a fanfare to Max Trader of the Grand Junction, Colorado Public Schools for a successful inservice that should be emulated.

This is the final paper in a four-part series describing the products of a statewide learning disability program in Illinois called Project SCREEN. The previous articles described (1) a newly developed, multifaceted, group early identification instrument called SCREEN© (Senf & Comrey 1975), (2) the theoretical conception of learning disabilities and a survey of Illinois special education cooperative directors (Senf & Sushinsky 1975), and (3) attitudes regarding learning disabilities expressed by Illinois professionals and state LD consultants nationwide (Senf & Grossman 1975). This article describes a series of resource documents produced under the auspices of Project SCREEN.

This project reports on the characteristics of over 3000 children enrolled in Child Service Demonstration Centers for Learning Disabilities in 21 states. The major results of the questionnaire study revealed that: (1) most of the children were in the lower elementary grades, (2) the sex ratio was three boys to one girl, (3) of the children enrolled, approximately two-thirds were rated as reading problems, (4) the median educational retardation was one grade below the mental age reading grade expectancy, (5) the retardation in reading and spelling was one-half grade more than the retardation in arithmetic, (6) the distribution of IQs contained a larger proportion with below average ability than is found in the general population of children, and (7) the resource room was the most commonly used method for the delivery of service. In general, children with learning disabilities are defined by most of the Child Service Demonstration Centers to be those who are below grade in educational achievement, especially in reading.

A measure and comparison of the predictive validity of two screening tests and teachers' forecasts were made for predicting first-year reading performance. The Meeting Street School Screening Test and Slingerland's Pre-reading Screening Procedures were administered two weeks after the beginning of school. Teachers' judgments of expected end-of-year reading achievement were obtained after six weeks of instruction. All three screening devices significantly predicted end-of-year reading achievement. Combining whole tests and parts of tests resulted in more accurate predictions than when individual predictors were used. The best predictor combinations explained variations in reading achievement scores in the range of 50–60%.

Fifty-eight reading disabled children referred to a medical clinic for developmentally disabled children were examined on admission and after 3 to 5 years of special educational intervention. As a group, the children showed minimal gains in reading, remaining among the poorest readers for age. However, one-third of the children (mainly the older ones) made sufficient progress which, while slowly achieved, resulted in a minimal degree of functional reading. A high proportion of the children were diagnosed as having neurologic and/or psychiatric disorders which were unrelated to the level of reading failure found within the group. The findings suggested that such children are not representative of the general population of poor readers in the community and that throughout their schooling they require special educational methods, other than reading, for the acquisition of subject matter.

The primary concern of this study was the determination of the degree of relationship between the Frostig DTVP and academic achievement as measured by the Scholastic Research Association Achievement Test Battery (SRA). The DTVP was administered to kindergarten and first grade subjects while the SRA was administered to the same subjects at second and third grade. Product-moment correlations were then computed along with step-wise multiple regression analyses. None of the DTVP scores were useful predictors of second grade school achievement, while only Position in Space predicted SRA Language Arts and Math Concept achievement at the third grade level.

This study examined the effects of classroom noise on an auditory processing task of learning disabled children, with distractibility, activity, and cognition controlled. Forty children divided into normal and learning disabled groups were administered both forms of the Wepman Auditory Discrimination Test. Two listening conditions were tested: (1) the relative quiet of small test rooms, and (2) classroom noise (on a tape recorder) in the same test rooms. Results showed that learning disabled children made significantly more auditory discrimination errors than normals in both quiet and noise conditions. Both normal and learning disabled children made significantly more auditory discrimination errors in noise than in quiet. It cannot be said that the noise affected the two groups differentially; the magnitude of the differences was comparable statistically. It was concluded that auditory discrimination scores in quiet do not reflect accurately the expected value for the classroom.

Current state legislation reflects professional differences of opinion about the identification, assessment, and placement of learning disabled children. The authors suggest that services for the learning disabled will be improved if legislation decreases its emphasis on categories and concentrates instead on providing mechanisms for meeting the specific educational needs of individual children.