This paper describes the current challenges facing nurses and other professionals who care for people with profound and multiple intellectual disabilities. This particularly vulnerable group of service users often rely on a repertoire of non-verbal behaviours to communicate their needs and wishes. These challenges include the requirements of…

Every year, under the federal law known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), millions of children with disabilities receive special services designed to meet their unique needs. Early intervention services are provided through the state to infants and toddlers with disabilities under three years of age and their families. For…

One in every five Americans lives with at least one disability or disorder, including both the obvious, such as those requiring the use of a wheelchair, and the less evident ones, such as eating disorders or Asperger's syndrome. Those responsible for teaching disabled students and providing services and support for them need ready access to…

This paper focuses on definitions, incidence, and characteristics of the multihandicapping condition known as "learning disabled, hearing impaired," in order to provide a means of identifying these children and determining whether or not they require different teaching strategies. (JDD)

Describes a school-based curriculum for children with profound and multiple learning difficulties in community schools. Considers issues which schools will face as the children are integrated into the community. (RJC)

This article discusses issues in the identification of learning disabilities in students with low vision and examines the academic performance of one 8-year-old student and the methods that his multidisciplinary team used to document a dual diagnosis of low vision and learning disabilities. (Contains references.) (Author/DB)

Alberta Education provides programming support and funding to school authorities to develop and implement special education programming for ECS children and students in grades 1 to 12. "Special Education Coding Criteria 2009/2010" outlines criteria within specific categories to help school authorities identify those children and students…

Discusses the potential uses of literature with people with severe and profound learning disabilities and describes a series of multisensory interactive drama games re-telling the story of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. (Author/DB)

The paper examines issues concerned with the incidence of visual perceptual learning disabilities among deaf and partially hearing children. Evidence indicating a high incidence (15.5 percent of 682 deaf students) of visual perceptual deficits is offered, as is a definition of visual perception. The impact of visual perceptual deficits on…

The development of a new definition of learning disabilities accepted by organizations comprising the National Joint Committee for Learning Disabilities in 1981 is reviewed including reasons for a new definition, procedures followed in its development, the Committee's intended meaning for each phrase, and the current status of the definition. (DB)

The prevalence of communication disorders in a population of 242 children with learning disabilities between 8 and 12 years of age was determined. A speech, language, or hearing problem was exhibited by 96.2 percent of the children. Only six percent of the children were considered to be receiving appropriate services. (Author/DB)

This paper describes the use of a new project, "from the inside looking out" (FILO) (N. Richardson Unpublished data), to develop communication, interaction and emotional literacy skills with people with profound and multiple learning disabilities. The authors utilized tools derived from Intensive Interaction Therapy [D. Hewett & M. Nind (1994)…

This report describes activities and accomplishments of a four-year project to develop a doctoral program at the University of Kansas Medical Center to prepare teacher educators, researchers, supervisors/managers, and clinicians in programs in either deafness or learning disabilities and in a combined deafness and learning disabilities program.…

The national survey of 754 teachers of the hearing impaired found that teachers identified 23 percent of their students as also learning disabled whereas administrators in a previous study identified only 6.7 percent of hearing impaired students as also learning disabled. Teachers (84 percent) also reported little training in teaching such…

The authors describe a research effort funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention which is addressing the hypothesized link between learning disabilties and juvenile delinquency. (SBH)