The effectiveness of two instructional interventions was investigated in the context of teaching Arithmetic Combinations (ACs) of multiplication and division to students with Learning Disabilities (LD) or Mild Intellectual Disability (MID). The intervention for the control group (LD = 20, MID = 10) was based on principles of effective instruction,…

There is a plethora of research suggesting that daily stressors and fatigue can have a significant effect on learning and various cognitive functions in young adults. Little is known, however, about how these effects impact learning and other neurocognitive functions in students with learning challenges when compared to their counterparts without…

This study investigated the effectiveness of "Solve It!" instruction on students' knowledge of math problem-solving strategies. "Solve It!" is a cognitive strategy intervention designed to improve the math problem solving of middle school students with learning disabilities (LD). Participants included seventh- and eighth-grade…

This article presents a review of the "Process Assessment of the Learner-Second Edition" (PAL-II), an individual or group-administered instrument designed to assess the cognitive processes involved in academic tasks in kindergarten through sixth grade. The instrument allows the examiner to identify reasons for underachievement and…

Working memory has been called the "door to learning" (think the library) and is strongly related to performance in reading comprehension and problem-solving. Persons with strong working memory have a wide open door for acquiring all types of new information. They are able to hang on to new information, work with it, integrate it with lots of…

A study of 30 normal and poor readers tested the hypothesis that reading disabled children's failure to apply effective strategies to rote-memory tasks is related to their lack of reflective knowledge about memory and their disorganized approach to cognitive tasks. Findings supported the view that many children fail to read well because they do…

The article reviews the controversy over the information processing model as an approach to diagnosing and remediating learning disabled students. The Slingerland Screening Tests are suggested as an alternative tool for examining information processing skills. Advantages of the test include direct application to classroom tasks. (Author/CL)

Students with learning disabilities work to avoid difficult tasks while trying to appear competent ("passing"). They also check, monitor, and evaluate their actions, a form of "metacognition." These are flip sides of the same coin of strategic interaction and are context-bound, not context-free activities. (Author/LHW)

Defines the concept of autonomous learning. Presents the Strategies Program for Effective Learning/Thinking (SPELT), including its underlying assumptions, instructional model, teacher training procedures, research findings, and anticipated future development. Research results include implications for learning-disabled and gifted students. (KS)

Between 5% and 8% of school-age children have some form of memory or cognitive deficit that interferes with their ability to learn concepts or procedures in one or more mathematical domains. A review of the arithmetical competencies of these children is provided, along with discussion of underlying memory and cognitive deficits and potential…

This case study of a 30-year-old woman with a developmental learning disability (including anomia, auditory processing problems, difficulty in learning reading and spelling skills, and a poor sense of number) suggests that all these impairments may be explained in terms of a sequential processing deficit. (Author/DB)

Twenty ways are presented to help students with special needs gain and apply learning strategies more efficiently, including helping students discriminate whether information is useful or irrelevant, focusing on metacognitive development, encouraging self-sufficiency, helping students organize material into meaningful units, and having student…

Difficulties facing learning disabled (LD) students in problem solving are reviewed and an approach is proposed to help them make better use of the learning strategies available to them. A cognitive learning style approach to LD students is introduced, followed by an analysis of problem solving and the stages of information processing (attention,…

The hypothesis that reading difficulty of learning disabled (LD) children is attributable to deficiencies in verbal encoding was investigated with 60 LD and normal children (mean CA=9.1, mean IQ=103.5). Ss were compared on recall of a serial short-term memory task after pre-training of named and unnamed stimulus conditions. Data suggested that…

The paper discusses the implications for research and education of learning disabled students of three models of learning disabilities. The models focus on either: (1) child-centered process problems (attentional deficits), (2) nonspecific performance problems (metacognitive problems), and (3) the interaction between child-centered variables and…