Intensive academic interventions help address the learning difficulties of students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs). Challenging behaviors exhibited during instruction can have a negative impact on the overall effectiveness of an academic intervention. In addition to academic interventions, students with SLD may benefit from behavioral…

Fourth graders with learning disabilities in transcription (handwriting and spelling), LD-TD, and without LD-TD (non-LD), were compared on three writing tasks (letters, sentences, and essays), which differed by level of language, when writing by pen and by keyboard. The two groups did not differ significantly in Verbal IQ but did in handwriting,…

Prior to silently reading basal stories, 24 school-identified learning disabled children (eight to nine years old) were exposed to a plans-and-goals activity and a conceptual-overview statement activity. The plans-and-goals activity was found to affect the children's reading comprehension significantly. Results support the purported importance of…

Investigation of learning-disabled elementary school students' (N=29) ability to comprehend narrative text when important information was systematically dispersed or centralized within the text revealed no significant effect for input mode on measures of comprehension and recall. (Author/CB)

The performance instability of learning disabled (LD) and emotionally handicapped (EH) elementary children was compared in two studies. Results indicated no difference between the performance instability of the two groups of subjects. Implications for the diagnosis and treatment of LD and other exceptional students are discussed. (Author/CL)

Two versions, via microcomputer, of the Test of Written Spelling were administered to underachieving students from a regular third-grade class and from an upper-grade, self-contained class for learning handicapped (LH) students. Results indicated that students took less time and spelled more words correctly on the standard written version.…

The study investigated differences in the spelling ability of two populations of elementary pupils: 30 reading disabled students receiving learning disability services and 77 able readers. It was concluded that the spelling ability of school-identified students with severe reading deficiencies was significantly inferior to that of reading-able…

The paper reports on two experiments which examined the linguistic and metacognitive aspects of the communication process in 15 normally achieving and 30 learning disabled grade five children. Training increased learning disabled children's sociolinguistic awareness and their use of sociolinguistic strategies for planfulness. Interestingly, the…

Thirty-two learning disabled and 32 average elementary students, matched by grade, read under three conditions: classroom group, individual, and individual restatement condition, requiring subjects to summarize contents during passage reading. Overall results of comprehension tests failed to confirm predicted differential effects of conditions on…

Thirty-five learning disabled third- and sixth-graders were compared with matched peers using teacher ratings of temperament, problem behavior, and observed classroom behavior. Group differences were significant on the first temperament factor, task orientation, and teacher ratings of several problem behaviors, with each difference favoring the…

Twenty-four learning disabled students (10 to 14 years old) assigned to three reward schedules (response contingent reward, 100 percent noncontingent reward, and 50 percent random noncontingent reward) were asked to replicate block designs and solve coding problems. No differences were found in errors, but Ss in noncontingent conditions…

Among findings of a study involving 94 elementary learning disabled (LD) students were that Ss with math goals on their individualized education programs did significantly more poorly on a subtraction test than did Ss without math goals, and that Ss' subtraction skills generally improved with age except for age 11. (CL)

The study examined the dyadic verbal communication skills of 12 learning disabled and 36 normally achieving fourth- and fifth-grade boys. Dyads involving learning disabled children were found to be less successful and less efficient than those consisting of only normally ahcieving children. (Author)

The study investigated the referential communication ability of 40 learning disabled and 40 nonlearning disabled elementary school boys (ages 9 to 11). Results indicated that learning disabled Ss were less effective in providing descriptive information about objects than their nondisabled peers. (PHR)

The performance of 60 learning disabled and normally achieving children (ages 9-12), either given minimal instruction to use organizing strategies or engaged only in practice with a free recall task, were compared. Factors underlying the unexpected finding that strategy use did not account for learning disabled students' poor recall are discussed.…