Background: With the right support, people with learning disabilities can be 'good enough' parents (Coren et al., 2011; Murphy & Feldman, 2002). Parenting programmes exist to support parents and are made accessible for people with learning disabilities who are expecting a baby, but evaluation of the benefit of these interventions is poor due…

Developmental dysgraphia refers to a grouping of neuropsychologically-based, specific learning disabilities that directly impact approximately 7-15% U.S. students (Feifer, 2013). Effective writing, including the use of fundamental and effective communication of ideas and content-specific knowledge in written form, are crucial not only for academic…

Previous studies of K-12 dyslexia legislation have described broad trends in legislative content, such as the presence or absence of screening and intervention requirements. This study uses document analysis to provide a finer-grained description of the laws to highlight critical variation in policy that will directly affect (a) the number and…

Special education teachers must have the skills to design and deliver intensive interventions for students with severe and persistent learning and behavioral needs. To ensure effective instruction for these students, preservice preparation programs must provide their teacher candidates with opportunities to learn, apply, and practice intensive…

Michael Shaughnessy, shares a conversation with Helen Dudeney, a private consultant who has been actively involved in working with gifted children since 1988. She was originally, trained and worked as an accountant and was very involved with working with children through volunteering for many years as a leader in the Scout Association. She started…

The incidence of writing disorder is as common as reading disorder, but it is frequently under-identified and rarely targeted for intervention. Increasing clinical understanding on various subtypes of writing disorder through assessment guided by data-driven decision making may alleviate this disparity for students with writing disorders. The…

Overrepresentation of Dual Language Learners (DLLs) in special education remains a problem even after 40 years of inquiry. One factor is that the U.S. federal government has neither clearly explained the definition of Specific Learning Disability (SLD) nor operationally defined it to identify children for special education services. This lack of…

Prior reviews of evidence for the impact of formative assessment on student achievement suggest widely different estimates of formative assessment's effectiveness, ranging from 0.40 and 0.70 standard deviations in one review. The purpose of this study is to describe variability in the effectiveness of formative assessment for promoting student…

Success in our 21st century schools is linked with students' mastery of a wide range of academic and technological skills that rely heavily on executive function processes. This article describes a theoretical paradigm for understanding, assessing, and teaching that emphasizes the central importance of six executive function processes: goal…

"Reading Mastery" is designed to provide explicit reading instruction to students in grades pre-K-5. One of several Direct Instruction curricula from McGraw-Hill, "Reading Mastery" is available in two versions: (1) "Reading Mastery Classic" (for grades pre-K-2) aims to help beginning readers identify letter sounds,…

This study investigates how state Departments of Education address the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students as they relate to the identification of students with a specific learning disability (SLD). A qualitative research design of directed content analysis was used to examine each state's regulatory criteria for SLD, as…

Increased awareness of twice-exceptional students is important for all educators and psychologists; however, for school psychologists, improved understanding of twice-exceptionality will enhance their unique role in assessing twice-exceptional students and in recommending appropriate interventions in schools. In this article, the authors address…

Students with disabilities often struggle with writing tasks. In order to improve the written expression performance of high school students with deficits in written expression, a Direct Instruction writing program was implemented. The participants were six high school students in programs for individuals with learning disabilities. Three of the…

This study examined effects of goal setting, frequency of progress monitoring, and method of evaluating progress on the number of instructional change prompts generated by reading-curriculum-based measurements (CBM). Participants were 31 high-incidence special education students in grades 2-6 selected from 8 schools. Following baseline…

This article compares and contrasts the main features of dynamic testing and assessment (DT/A) and response to intervention (RTI). The comparison is carried out along the following lines: (a) historical and empirical roots of both concepts, (b) premises underlying DT/A and RTI, (c) terms used in these concepts, (d) use of these concepts, (e)…