In this commentary, I examine some of the distinctive, foundational difficulties in learning fractions and other types of rational numbers encountered by students with a mathematical learning disability and how these differ from the struggles experienced by students classified as low achieving in math. I discuss evidence indicating that students…

Learning fractions is difficult for children in general and especially difficult for children with mathematics difficulties (MD). Recent research on developmental and individual differences in fraction knowledge of children with MD and typically achieving (TA) children has demonstrated that U.S. children with MD start middle school behind their TA…

In this longitudinal study, we investigated the role of word reading and mathematical difficulties measured in 9th grade as factors for receiving educational support for learning in upper secondary education in Grades 10 to 12 (from ages 16 to 19) and furthermore as predictors of dropout from upper secondary education within 5 years after…

Recent studies have shown that children with mathematics difficulties (MD) have weaknesses in multiple areas of mathematics. Andersson, for example, recently found that children with MD perform significantly worse than other children on clock reading tasks. The present study builds on this recent finding and aims at a more profound understanding…

There exists a substantial number of studies that have identified a subset of low-achieving mathematics students who do not develop a reliance on retrieval for simple addition but who continue to use a counting strategy to solve these problems. There are few studies, however, that have focused on how retrieval of simple addition facts may be…

Recently, talk of a new type of learning disability (LD)--a foreign language learning disability, or FLLD--has made its way into the LD and foreign language (FL) literature. However, no empirical evidence has been published to support the concept of a "disability" for FL learning by those professionals who use the term. In this article, the author…

Discusses cognitive, affective, and linguistic influences on foreign language learning. It proposes the Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis (LCDH) model for understanding foreign language learning problems. The empirical support for the LCDH model is reviewed. Diagnostic, pedagogical, and policy implications are addressed. (Author/DB)

This study examined relationships between mathematical learning difficulties (MLD) and the planning, attention, simultaneous, successive (PASS) theory of cognitive processing. PASS processes were assessed in 267 Dutch students with MLD. Results indicated students with MLD performed lower than peers on all "Cognitive Assessment System"…