The learning disability construct gained scientific and political legitimacy in the United States in the 1960s as an explanation for some forms of childhood learning difficulties. In 1975, federal law incorporated learning disability into the categorical system of special education. The historical and scientific roots of the disorder involved a…

In the mid-1970s, Donald Hammill and his colleagues authored three scathing critiques of the two most trusted scientific traditions of learning disability treatment--movement education and psycholinguistic training (Hammill, 1972; Hammill & Larsen, 1974; Hammill, Goodman, & Wiederholt, 1974). These critical reviews of research rejected the older…

Benefits to using creative movement and dance as teaching tools in the classroom include increased student understanding of content, improved classroom behavior, and the development of new forms of assessment. Integration of these activities within the instructional day will meet the needs of a variety of learners, especially kinesthetic learners,…