In this closing commentary to the special edition of "Learning Disability Quarterly" ("LDQ") on parent voice in educational decision making for students with learning disabilities, we briefly survey main topics from each article, illuminating important findings from the authors, along with several questions they raise, and…

Developmental exceptionalities span the range of learning abilities and encompass children with both learning disorders and learning gifts. The purpose of this article is to stimulate thinking about these exceptionalities, particularly the complexities and variations within and across people. Investigators tend to view learning disabilities or…

This introductory article briefly describes each of the following eight articles in this special issue on the neurology and genetics of learning related disorders. It notes the greater appreciation of learning disability as a set of complex disorders with broad and intricate neurological bases and of the large individual differences in how these…

Relates the story of a ninth-grade student who worked to convince the school board to allow changes in policy to adapt to his best friend's strong reaction to bright lights which handicapped his friend's efforts to learn. Urges teachers to experiment with learning styles and add to the existing body of research. (SR)

Questions the validity of current reductionist assumptions concerning learning differences and proposes a new science of life based on dynamic, transforming, hierarchically organized systems of energy. This view of cognition is related to Piaget's insights, which are extended to include a view of learning differences consistent with these…

Provides information about learning disabilities for the developmental educator. Discusses the multidisciplinary nature of its definition, the middle-class orientation of the movement, and the instructional methods and programs available for adolescents. Encourages the development of postsecondary programs geared to individual student needs. (CAM)

In this paper I comment on recent recommendations that students' responsiveness to instruction (RTI) provides a basis for identification of students as learning disabled. I repeat an earlier argument (Gerber & Semmel, 1985) that teachers embedded in schools are naturally variable in their capacity to respond to differences in students' response to…

The overview focuses on the advantages and principles of instruction using learning strategies for students with learning disabilities. It is emphasized that strategies are not to be applied without consideration of the individual, process, or context. (MSE)

In response to a previous article, the paper characterizes learning disabilities as the consequence of a transaction between students exhibiting certain individual differences and the social system of the schools. Basic and applied research can be related in good instructional research which includes the context of disability. (DB)

The author argues that many children labeled as learning disabled are merely exhibiting the range of individual differences statistically expected for various school related abilities. She encourages the individualization of instruction in the regular class to allow individual rates of progress and to avoid the learning disability label. (DB)

In response to Poplin (EC 210 561) and Heshusius (EC 220 916), the paper stresses that holism and empiricism are not dichotomous paradigms and that learning-disabled students require instruction which recognizes individual differences, the meaning inherent in structure and pattern, and accountability consistent with the paradigm being applied. (DB)

This article notes the failures of traditional deficit models of learning disabilities and considers, instead, possibilities of Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. It summarizes findings on talents of students labeled learning disabled, evidence of their abilities, implications of these for schools, and preliminary recommendations…

The discrepancy between middle-class and lower-class children's performance on IQ tests has been thought of as "cognitive deficit" or as "cognitive differences." This paper proposes another explanation--cognitive lag hypothesis--according to which the low IQ test scores of lower-class children are seen as due to the developmentally delayed…

The field of education has largely ignored the concept of the dialectic, except in the Socratic teaching method, and even there bipolar meaning or reasoning has not been recognized. Mainstream educational psychology bases its assumptions about human reasoning and learning on current demonstrative concepts of information processing and levels of…

The time may be ripe for the fields of mathematics education, special education, and cognitive psychology to converge, with their respective focuses on mathematical problem solving, individual differences among students, and analysis of cognitive processes. Four articles on learning disabilities in mathematics are introduced, and a research agenda…