The use of reconstructive elaborations for teaching content to secondary students with learning disabilities is described. The technique provides a framework for adapting all content-area information into more familiar, more concrete interactive elaborations. Its use with United States history in a recent study illustrates the strategy.…

In agreement with Coles (EC 220 146), the article presents: a sketch of how the learning disability field was born, the sociological reasons why the field inadvertently moved beyond its original intentions, and how Coles aims for advances in the theory and practice of diagnosing learning problems. (DB)

The study found that college students with learning disabilities given a remedial summer reading program using the Orton-Gillingham multisensory alphabetic phonetic approach achieved statistically significant gains when compared to groups receiving a nonphonetic intervention or receiving no intervention. (Author/DB)

This paper proposes that foreign-language learning problems result from difficulties with native-language learning. Research evidence is summarized showing that good and poor foreign-language learners exhibit significantly different levels of native-language skill and phonological processing ability. Potential challenges to this hypothesis are…

This study evaluated effects of an intervention to teach 23 high school students with learning disabilities (LD) how to understand, identify, discuss, and transform their ineffective beliefs. Results indicated that students with LD successfully learned the BELIEF Strategy contained in the intervention curriculum, and reported satisfaction with…

This article presents learning strategies to help high school students with learning disabilities succeed in technical classes. Strategies address time management, memorization, and learning to use charts and graphs. Figures offer an example of breaking a project into subtasks, a self-questioning strategy, the CAN DO learning strategy, and a…

This article describes a cooperative project between a teacher and sculptor to link sculpture with academic subjects within a self-contained class for 13-year-old students with learning disabilities. The nine-week project focused on biological habitats and included the construction of three-dimensional habitats on pieces of wood. (DB)

Fourth-grade students (n=45) either with or without learning disabilities and achieving or not achieving at grade level in math were asked to explain strategies used to solve computational problems. Strategies were classified as reproductive or reconstructive (which varied in applicability and efficiency). Significant group differences were found.…

An individualized physical activity program with a strong social skills component was implemented with 45 students (ages 8 to 10) with learning disabilities. Participants' gains in self-ratings of competence and teacher ratings of social behavior were no larger than gains of control students receiving comparable attention through individualized…

A Shakespearean play was taught in a resource room with students with learning disabilities in grades 10 through 12, in a manner that took advantage of the students' learning differences. Questions about "Macbeth" were developed and investigated before reading the play. The experience increased self-esteem and academic motivation. (SW)

This study compared attitudes of college students with (n=60) and without (n=144) specific learning disabilities toward studying a foreign language. Findings suggested that foreign language learning difficulties of learning-disabled students are not related to lack of motivation or anxiety but to the oral and written language problems of these…

Of 124 students (ages 5-15) with behavioral/emotional problems, 38 percent were identified as also having learning disabilities and an additional 17.8 percent as having learning problems. The incidence of learning disabilities decreased with age, but that of learning problems remained stable regardless of age groupings. (DB)

This paper proposes for consideration by intervention researchers two instructional parameters that potentially can promote transfer of learned strategies in students with learning disabilities. The two parameters are mediating student mindfulness during strategy learning and at transfer and engaging in transfer-promoting instruction. (JDD)

Describes, in a case study-like format, a cognitive strategy that might be helpful to the learning-disabled (LD) college student who must organize and write a longer text. Presents a brief description of an LD student and an actual writing assignment. Describes how the student completed the task. Discusses educational implications. (RS)

Interviews with 12 students each from grades 1 through 4 found students' attitudes could be placed in four categories differing on attitudes toward school learning, homework, and personal learning projects. More students with than without learning disabilities fell into the category which saw almost all learning as an imposition. (DB)