Sally Reis's research interests are related to talent development in all children as well as special populations of gifted and talented students, including students with learning disabilities, gifted females, and diverse groups of talented students who are often underserved. She is also interested in extensions of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model…

This article examines what we know about the experience of parents in the special education system--in particular, parents of children with learning disabilities since the passage of PL-94-142. Toward this end, I offer a review of special education literature about parent and professional collaboration, a rationale for relying upon a plurality of…

Intensive Interaction is an empirically researched approach to developing fundamental communication and sociability for people with severe and profound learning disabilities and/or autism. However, it is the author's contention that certain aspects of Intensive Interaction are not universally conceptualised in a uniform manner, and that there are…

Reynolds and Wheldall reviewed research relating to Reading Recovery (RR) and concluded that "RR has provided an excellent model in demonstrating how to plan, promote, and implement an intervention across an educational system and how to design a professional development programme" (2007, p. 218). They balanced this praise with concerns about the…

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…

An author of a paper (EC 602 060) that presents two causal models of learning disabilities comments on his interest in the research, how the research design developed, limitations of the research, and the need for replication with other disability groups. (JDD)

Two causal models are presented to describe influences on the performance of students with learning disabilities. The first model associates reading and math with three domains: neuropsychological, linguistic, and social-behavioral. The second model involved relationships among selected individual variables and suggests that learning disability is…

"Response-to-Intervention" (RTI) refers to a framework for providing support to struggling learners in the general education setting. To date, RTI models have focused primarily on reading intervention and typically utilize a three-tier approach. RTI models are designed to provide high-quality instruction using evidence-based best…

The authors assert that progress in conceptualizing learning disabilities and related intervention procedures is dependent on systematic, consistent, and educationally grounded theory, and that each practitioner should adopt a system and use it consistently. A cognitive-field model is illustrated and its use as a foundation for educating LD…

The paper describes learning disabled children as disassociated learners (not actively involved in the learning process). The framework shows how it may be logically conceptualized that some children disassociate themselves from academic learning and come to be termed learning disabled. (Author/CL)

An examination of the field of learning disabilities (LD) reviews early efforts to identify the syndrome, effects of the federal definition, and controversies over the conceptualization of LD. The author emphasizes the need continuing the search for a viable paradigm to meet definitional, assessment, and instructional needs of the profession. (CL)

Responsiveness to intervention (RTI) is being proposed as an alternative model for making decisions about the presence or absence of specific learning disability. We argue that many questions about RTI remain unanswered, and that radical changes in the proposed regulations are not warranted at this time. Since many fundamental issues related to…

The author reviews developments in the field of learning disabilities (LD). She traces the emergence of three models or perspectives of the causes and cures of LD: the psychological process model, the behavioral model, and the holistic model, which the author suggests is the model for the 1990's. Trends leading to acceptance of each model are…

The authors present an approach to the assessment of learning disabilities based on a definition of significant enabling skills for school learning. Students' competence in information processing, language, and mathematics is assessed in 11 tests. By using the Assessment of Basic Competencies test, it is possible to determine a child's location in…

The paper questions whether the school consultation model which provides services to learning disabled students has a sound theoretical base. Included are an examination of 10 different models of consultation and their relationship to theory and a review of studies on facilitating the mainstreaming of learning disabled and other low achieving…