Rehabilitation professionals working with students with disabilities and the families of those students face unique challenges in providing inclusive services to special education student populations. There needs to be a focus on adaptive teaching methods that provide quality experience for students with varying disabilities to promote student…

The present investigation was intended to provide information on the type of strategies employed by learning disabled (LD) students on standardized, group-administered achievement test items. Of particular interest was level of strategy effectiveness and possible differences in strategy use between LD and non-disabled students. Students attending…

Thirty-seven college students with learning disabilities were given a reading comprehension task under the following conditions: (1) using an optical character recognition/speech synthesis system; (2) having the text read aloud by a human reader; or (3) reading silently without assistance. Findings indicated that the greater the disability, the…

Comparison of 30 learning disabled (LD) children, ages 7 to 13, and controls on a computerized test of attentional skills indicated LD subjects committed more omission errors and responded at a slower rate but did not differ from the controls on commission errors, suggesting inefficient allocation of processing resources rather than attentional…

A computer analysis of the compositions written by university students with (N=30) and without (N-60) learning disabilities (LD) found LD students were not as fluent in word production and in the number of different words used but did produce longer sentences and T-units than nondisabled peers. (DB)

This response argues that Linda Siegel's paper (EC221505) confuses measures of intelligence with predicted achievement, calls for doing away with the construct of learning disabilities rather than the discrepancy definition model, and overlooks the need to determine which students qualify for special educational services for treatment of learning…

Comparison of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)-Revised and WISC III IQs for 64 students with specific learning disabilities and 55 students with mental retardation (MR) found that correlations were lower than those reported in the WISC-III manual. Only Performance IQs for students with MR matched the correlations reported in the…

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 26 hearing impaired college students, in order to test the assumption that the English-language deficiencies of hearing impaired students are similar to those of foreign students. The students were attending Gallaudet College's School of Preparatory Studies and were identified…

Comparison of elementary grade students with (N=42) or without (N=42) learning disabilities (LD) on their logical-mathematical structures of thought found that, though both groups generated grouping relationships, children with LD tendered to generate solutions showing less coordinated structures of thought. For both groups, scores on the…

This critique of a paper by Linda Siegel (EC221505) challenges Siegel's assumptions on the relationship of Intelligence Quotient to learning disabilities as being unacceptable and non-literature-based, and points out that discussion of Intelligence Quotient cutoffs may be moot given that 49 states employ no cutoff for learning disabilities. (JDD)

This commentary supports Linda Siegel's challenge to the learning disabilities field (in EC221505) to produce data indicating that dyslexic readers differ from other poor readers in their cognitive processing, educational prognosis, and response to treatment. The commentary also points out that the existence of Matthew effects reinforces Siegel's…

This study examined differences between Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III) and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) scores for 40 elementary students with learning disabilities. WISC-III Full Scale, Verbal, and Performance scores were lower than comparable WISC-R scores by one-third to one-half a…

Four computer-animated tasks were created to analyze the underlying structure of emerging phonological awareness at 3.5 years of age and to explore factors that influence children's (n=91) performance. The children were able to master tasks demanding identification, blending, and continuation of phonological units. Analysis supported two major…

Use of the discrepancy approach in defining learning disabilities is challenged, as intelligence tests do not measure potential, are not independent from what is measured by achievement tests, and are not powerful predictors of low reading performance. Use of intelligence tests in analysis, identification, and definition of learning disabilities…

In commenting on Linda Siegel's argument (in EC221505) that Intelligence Quotient is not causally related to reading difficulties, this paper argues that Intelligence Quotient is relevant to the definition of reading disabilities but that present knowledge may not justify its use in the selection of children for special services. (JDD)