Information is provided on a practicum that addressed the lack of access to computer-aided instruction by elementary level students with learning disabilities, due to lack of diverse software, limited funding, and insufficient teacher training. The strategies to improve the amount of access time included: increasing the number of computer programs…

This special newsletter issue on learning disabilities and juvenile justice includes statistics indicating unfavorable outcomes for many individuals with learning disabilities, presents findings of the Incarcerated Youth Task Force Report, and describes five successful programs for teaching reading. Articles include: "Parents Don't Care!--Or Do…

This paper reviews the literature on the teacher's role in mediating learning for students with learning disabilities in whole language instructional programs, with specific emphasis on teaching students the parts of language and generalizing this knowledge to various contexts. Principles identified in the review include the following: the dynamic…

Each of the four issues of this newsletter published in 1993 consists of one article dealing with a particular policy debate. Number 1, "Canadian Special Education Policies: Children with Learning Disabilities in a Bilingual and Multicultural Society" (Linda S. Siegel and Judith Wiener), discusses social and cultural factors affecting…

This paper reviews the literature on positive and negative aspects of diagnostic classification of children, or labeling. It reviews the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, which mandated that special education must be available to all children with disabilities. Definitional issues in diagnostic labeling of students with learning…

This qualitative study explored the perceptions of 14 adults (ages 21 to 37) with learning disabilities (including 7 enrolled in college) regarding their K-12 school experiences. Personal interviews were used to elicit those dimensions of the school experience perceived as most positive or most negative. The critical incident technique was used to…

This handbook describes the processes and techniques used to develop, implement, and evaluate four integrated vocational and academic learning programs in Wisconsin that included students from special populations. The handbook contains seven chapters. Chapter 1 presents an overview of the project, including the request for proposal process and…

This study examined whether acts leading to suspension or expulsion of students with disabilities were different from those committed by other students, based on a survey of 441 Kansas secondary school principals. Students with disabilities were found to be more than twice as likely to be suspended/expelled than other students, with 87 percent of…

This manual was developed as part of a project investigating the effectiveness of class-wide peer mediated reading instruction with middle grade students having mild disabilities and reading difficulties. It explains the procedures for introducing, implementing, and monitoring the project's version of repeated reading, in which pairs of students…

This study investigated students with specific learning disabilities (SLD), serious emotional disturbances (SED), and educable mental retardation (EMR) to determine if class size and class mix influence educational outcomes. A total of 110 students in 12 classrooms were included in the sample, which included classes with waivers (classes out of…

This training module was developed to introduce postsecondary personnel to the support services available for students with disabilities at Southwest Missouri State University. The module covers the definition and philosophy of support services, including the development of rehabilitation services, independent living, and the disability rights…

This study adapted the Cognitive Strategy in Writing (CSIW) program, which had been effectively used with elementary students with learning disabilities (LD), to an older population of students. CSIW embodies three guiding principles: (1) effective writing is seen as a holistic enterprise involving the processes of planning, organizing, writing,…

This study examined the relative effects of the self-evaluation process on written composition skills development among learning-disabled junior high students. It specifically evaluated the use of a structured self-evaluation process on the quality of short compositions. Experimental subjects (N=38) were taught the use of a self-evaluation…

This guide accompanies a five-part video series on learning disabilities (total length of 40 minutes), designed to help in the identification of children who may have learning disabilities and in the development of appropriate actions on their behalf. The guide introduces three children, whose true stories are told in the videos to illustrate the…

The practicum reported here was designed to address the problem of a group of six college-bound 11th- and 12th-grade learning disabled students who attended a high school that did not have in place a program that would prepare them for the transition from secondary school to college. The intervention used cognitive techniques to raise the…