This paper explores generic factors that prevent children from normally reaching their full potentials. Early childhood is a period when children should normally grow in an environment which is secured, friendly, filled with warmth, and nurturing to enhance the holistic growth of all children. There are many theories, ideologies, and policies to…

Experts have yet to reach consensus about what a learning disability is, how to determine if a child has one, and what to do about it. Leading researcher and clinician Deborah Waber offers an alternative to the prevailing view of learning disability as a problem contained within the child. Instead, she shows how learning difficulties are best…

Presented is a theory of learning handicaps based on psychoeducational and developmental considerations. Identified are five of the author's biases about remediation such as the tendency for teachers to continue remediation beyond the point of usefulness. Proposed is the existence of five task requirements such as attending to the task, attaching…

This article responds to Sylvia Richardson (EC 602 667), noting a failure to address the definitional issues associated with dyslexia. A definition of dyslexia is offered that considers the nature of the processing limitation underlying the disorder as well as the developmental changes that occur in the manifestation of the disorder. (Author/DB)

Designed for use in adult education courses for parents of developmentally disabled children, this manual provides basic information about major categories of disabilities and a glossary of commonly encountered terms. After an introductory overview, the manual provides information about the characteristics and etiology of five disabling…

This article introduces four papers (and responses to them) originally given at an April 1990 conference on the identification and treatment of dyslexia. Noted is the lack of consensus on what dyslexia is, how the condition comes to be, and what the nature of educational intervention ought to be, though developmental views are seen to predominate.…

This paper discusses the definition of learning disability through the concept of early identification of vulnerable children, based on a study of 650 inner-city preschool children. While the study's first step, scanning, identified the children who were vulnerable to learning disability, the second step, diagnosis, attempted to find the reasons…

Assessing and developing programs for children with a learning disability (LD) has been a complex and confusing task often involving professionals from the domains of health, education, and the social services in addition to the parents. The problems have included trying to agree upon a definition of LD, identifying interdisciplinary variations…

The Language Acquisition Device, or LAD, is related to reading and intellectual development in the first of five papers on cognitive and affective characteristics of exceptional children. A discussion of the intellectual processes involved in learning focuses on the developmental stages of Piaget. A report on a task force to discuss terminology…