In many countries, schools and classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse along a variety of dimensions, including migration; ethnic groups, national minorities and Indigenous peoples; gender; gender identity and sexual orientation; special education needs; and giftedness. To navigate this diversity, adopting a multidimensional and…

This article explains a process for improving specific learning disabilities (SLD) eligibility guidelines in a special education cooperative in Nebraska. The Central Nebraska Support Services Program (CNSSP) is a special education cooperative that serves four public school districts and seven parochial schools in central Nebraska. Children birth…

The present study examines school professionals' self-reported perceptions of readiness in relation to the implementation of Response to Intervention (RTI) following a mandated deadline across the state of Illinois, as well their beliefs about the framework. A survey was developed to measure variables in the model related to school professionals'…

Founded in 1967, The Lab School of Washington (LSW) has been educating students with learning disabilities using an arts-based curriculum for over 50 years. Sally Smith originally started the school out of frustration with the inability of traditional educational environments to reach her intelligent, but learning disabled, young son and others…

This article describes how actuarial methods can supplant discrepancy models and augment problem solving and Response to Intervention (RTI) efforts by guiding the process of identifying specific learning disabilities (SLD). Actuarial methods use routinized selection and execution of formulas derived from empirically established relationships to…

The practice for identification in the area of specific learning disability has historically included IQ testing and comparing the sub-tests for a discrepancy. Unfortunately, this discounted students whose IQ was too high for the MR (mental retardation) category but did not have high discrepancies among sub-tests. These "flat-liners" could not be…

Special education has been critiqued for not adequately acknowledging and therefore addressing the overrepresentation of students of colour assigned disability labels. To counter the paucity of information about the largest group of disabled students in urban settings, eight young adults labelled learning disabled (LD) co-created "portraits in…

An author of a paper (EC 602 060) that presents two causal models of learning disabilities comments on his interest in the research, how the research design developed, limitations of the research, and the need for replication with other disability groups. (JDD)

Two causal models are presented to describe influences on the performance of students with learning disabilities. The first model associates reading and math with three domains: neuropsychological, linguistic, and social-behavioral. The second model involved relationships among selected individual variables and suggests that learning disability is…

The policies underlying the specific learning disability (SLD) regulations in the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) are analyzed. The analysis focuses on the Response-to-Intervention (RTI) provision ("if the child responds to scientific, research-based intervention") as a diagnostic model,…

Response to Intervention (RTI) was encoded into the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, and is being adopted on a wide scale as an alternative approach to identification of students with learning disabilities. For RTI to be an effective mechanism for addressing disproportionate representation of culturally and…

The authors assert that progress in conceptualizing learning disabilities and related intervention procedures is dependent on systematic, consistent, and educationally grounded theory, and that each practitioner should adopt a system and use it consistently. A cognitive-field model is illustrated and its use as a foundation for educating LD…

The paper describes learning disabled children as disassociated learners (not actively involved in the learning process). The framework shows how it may be logically conceptualized that some children disassociate themselves from academic learning and come to be termed learning disabled. (Author/CL)

An examination of the field of learning disabilities (LD) reviews early efforts to identify the syndrome, effects of the federal definition, and controversies over the conceptualization of LD. The author emphasizes the need continuing the search for a viable paradigm to meet definitional, assessment, and instructional needs of the profession. (CL)

The author reviews developments in the field of learning disabilities (LD). She traces the emergence of three models or perspectives of the causes and cures of LD: the psychological process model, the behavioral model, and the holistic model, which the author suggests is the model for the 1990's. Trends leading to acceptance of each model are…