Competence in algebra is linked to access to higher education, employment in better-paying jobs, and, increasingly, the ability to earn a high school diploma. For many students with learning disabilities, developing proficiency in algebra represents a challenging, but necessary goal. Teachers of students with learning disabilities need access to…

Twenty-three intermediate grade students (seven with learning difficulties) completed a concept mapping and vocabulary quiz, with instructions highlighting the value of learning goals or performance goals. Children with varying learning histories mediated in-school learning with qualitatively distinct epistemologies, and the "learning goals" task…

Questions the validity of current reductionist assumptions concerning learning differences and proposes a new science of life based on dynamic, transforming, hierarchically organized systems of energy. This view of cognition is related to Piaget's insights, which are extended to include a view of learning differences consistent with these…

A cognitive theory of readiness is offered as a possible explanation of the learning problems of learning or reading disabled secondary students. A discussion of the implications of the theory for secondary content area reading is included along with a model for implementation of the readiness components. For related information see EC 132…

The label "cognitive" has been used to designate five substantially different approaches to the study of learning disabilities: information processing, metacognition, genetic epistemology, cognitive behavior modification, and the specific abilities model. (Author)

Twelve nondisabled adolescents were superior to 12 learning disabled students in performance on all types of strategy transformations presented on simple arithmetic computation tasks. Significant ability-group differences emerged on reduction to answer, saving partial results, unit building, and alternative method transformations. Results…

There is strong interest in strategy instruction and in conducting research on the topic, with many researchers developing strategy interventions for both normal and learning disabled populations. Experiment design has become both methodologically sound and conceptually convincing. A comprehensive research program requiring both laboratory and…

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The study examined the cartoon humor comprehension of 30 learning disabled and 30 non-handicapped boys in two age groups, eight- and twelve-year-olds. Significant main effects were found indicating a developmental lag in the cognitive structure necessary for understanding humor in the learning disabled subjects. (Author/DB)

The Matching Familiar Figures Test was administered to 8- to 9- and 10- to 11-year-old learning disabled (N=30) and normal (N=30) boys. Time and error data were analyzed separately and in combination to yield two additional variables: impulsivity and efficiency. (Author)

Comparison of elementary grade students with (N=42) or without (N=42) learning disabilities (LD) on their logical-mathematical structures of thought found that, though both groups generated grouping relationships, children with LD tendered to generate solutions showing less coordinated structures of thought. For both groups, scores on the…

The article points out that the label "cognitive" has been used to designate five substantially different approaches to learning disabilities: information processing, metacognition, genetic epistemology, cognitive behavior modification, and the specific-abilities model. Despite the similar label, the instructional interventions of these approaches…

The findings provide evidence that the learning disabled develop most cognitive abilities in a manner similar to that of their normal counterparts, though perhaps slightly delayed, and that by adolescence, development in the learning disabled approaches that of normals. (Author/DLS)

Twenty-nine children with learning disabilities (LD) in grades 2 and 4 through 7 were compared with children without LD for their development of proportional structures of thought. Significantly fewer children with LD had constructed second-order logical structures necessary to act on problems using multiplicative and preproportional reasoning.…

Aspects considered include cognitive and social development, the preschool prediction of learning disabilities, patterns of environmental processes in learning disabilities and mental retardation, environmental disadvantages, and biological determinants. (Author/DLS)