The heterogeneity among children with learning disabilities still represents a barrier and a challenge in their conceptualization. Although a dimensional approach has been gaining support, the categorical approach is still the most adopted, as in the recent fifth edition of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders." The…

Six adolescents with learning disabilities participated in an eight-step cognitive strategy designed to enable students to read, understand, carry out, and check verbal math problems encountered in the general math secondary curriculum. Visual analysis of the data indicated the strategy was an effective intervention for Ss with deficits in verbal…

The article discusses aspects of the definition of "learning disabilities". The process of learning is discussed including such themes as social interaction, personal reflection and response, integration, transformation/growth, and ecological wholeness, balance, and fit. Encouraged is a nonproblematic definition of learning disabilities. (DB)

Learning disabled (LD) and non-LD boys (grades two and six) were given a false recognition task. Study and test items were manipulated to form visual, acoustic, and semantic distractors. Results suggest that LD students do not spontaneously use the effortful semantic processing strategy of elaborative rehearsal. (Author/CL)

This article draws together three papers (EC 603 155, EC 603 157, and EC 603 158) on metacognitive theory in literacy, writing, and mathematics acquisition of children with learning disabilities. Topics discussed include self-regulation, the reciprocal relationship between self-regulated learning and motivational beliefs, and the classroom role of…

The study of 813 learning disabled children (ages 6-11) with test-retest data (after three years) on 224 children found the children to suffer a progressive deterioration in verbal ability whereas their nonverbal ability showed an increase in the earlier years, leveling off thereafter. (Author/DB)

The study reports the findings of a meta-analysis, the application of statistical methods of data synthesis from individual studies, reviewing 180 studies assessing the efficacy of perceptual motor training. Perceptual motor training was not found to be an effective intervention technique for improving academic, cognitive, or perceptual motor…

Proposed is a theory of cognitive integration to explain the observed failure that many black and Puerto Rican elementary school children experience in learning to read despite intensive efforts at remediation. (Author/DB)

Similarities and differences between discursive practitioners and scientist-practitioners are discussed in reference to a variety of issues. The scientist-practitioner's approach to generating and evaluating new knowledge is illustrated with two partnerships: (a) between the University of Washington Multidisciplinary Learning Disability Center and…

A pilot study in which four postsecondary students with learning problems participated in sessions modeled after R. Feuerstein's theory of cognitive modifiability (instrumental enrichment) indicated the potential power of the Feuerstein method to improve learning disabled students' cognitive skills. (CL)

Records of children admitted to a growth clinic and follow-up questionnaires were examined to determine the incidence of learning problems in children with constitutional growth delay and those with familial short stature. (Author/PHR)

Two 9-year-old boys are described who performed in the normal range on measures of IQ, language ability, and reading. The boys were unable, however, to acquire elementary numerical skills and also manifested other specific cognitive deficits associated with the Gerstmann syndrome. (Author)

Response latencies of 27 learning disabled (LD) and 27 normal control boys (8-11 years old) were compared on a picture-word interference task. Both LD and control Ss exhibited greater interference effects (longer response latencies) when naming pictures (versus naming words) and when categorizing words (versus categorizing pictures). (Author/CL)