Although specific learning disabilities (SLD) represent the largest category for which school-age children receive special education services, the science and practice of SLD identification continues to evade consensus. Our goal is to bring together trainers and researchers with different perspectives on SLD identification to help spur a move…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which researchers in the field of developmental language disorder are utilizing validated methods to diagnose their research participants. Method: We examined 90 research articles published from 2015 to 2019 that included English-speaking participants from the United States who were…

In this report, we summarize research on the identification of SLD and make recommendations for practice. The report begins with a summary of the legal requirements for SLD identification and what constitutes a comprehensive evaluation. It then discusses the attributes of SLD according to different conceptual frameworks and reviews research on the…

Teaching vocabularies to young children is critical as vocabulary is related to long-term language, literacy, and academic skills. The current study used a multiple probe design to examine the effects of enhanced milieu teaching with book reading on the use of word approximations in four 2- to 4-year-old females with language delay. The first…

Response to intervention (RTI) has been promoted for nearly 20 years as a valid supplement to or alternative method of learning disability (LD) identification. Nevertheless, important unresolved questions remain about its role in disability identification. We had two purposes when conducting this study of 229 economically and racially diverse poor…

This article examines the validity of IQ-achievement discrepancy and low-achievement as criteria for the identification of disabilities in Spanish-speaking ELs and the factors that moderate the validity of these approaches as bases for identification. While there has been a long history of examining the validity of different approaches to…

An independent validation was conducted of the Utah Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network's (UT-ADDM) classification of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). UT-ADDM final case status (n = 90) was compared with final case status as determined by independent external expert reviewers (EERs). Inter-rater reliability…

The rise in the prevalence of autism creates a need for a reliable and valid measure of attitudes towards autism. The current study describes the development of a brief 16-item measure of Societal Attitudes towards Autism (SATA) that exhibits sound psychometric properties and has a demonstrated ability to discriminate between expert and general…

Purpose: To date, there is no tool for assessing early pragmatic development of Polish-speaking children. This study aimed to adapt to Polish a standardized parent report measure, the Language Use Inventory (LUI; O'Neill, 2009, in order to enable cross-cultural comparisons and to use the LUI-Polish to screen for pragmatic development in children…

The role of classroom teachers in the early detection of learning difficulty/disability in school children cannot be ignored. When it comes to young children's literacy learning, there is substantial consensus that the teacher is the primary assessment agent (Johnston & Rogers, 2002). But classroom teachers also have a lot of responsibilities…

This paper discusses issues regarding the validity and reliability of psychoeducational assessments provided to Disability Services Offices at Canadian Universities. Several vignettes illustrate some current issues and the potential consequences when university students are given less than thorough disability evaluations and ascribed diagnoses.…

Few empirical investigations have evaluated learning disabilities (LD) identification methods based on a pattern of cognitive strengths and weaknesses (PSW). This study investigated the reliability and validity of two proposed PSW methods: the concordance/discordance method (C/DM) and cross battery assessment (XBA) method. Cognitive assessment…

Objective: The primary aim of the present study was to evaluate the validity of proposed "DSM-5" criteria for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Method: We analyzed symptoms from 14,744 siblings (8,911 ASD and 5,863 non-ASD) included in a national registry, the Interactive Autism Network. Youth 2 through 18 years of age were included if at least one…

We used framework analysis to investigate the utility of pervasive developmental disorder diagnoses, interviewing young people (aged 9-16 years) with high-functioning autistic disorder (AD) and Asperger's disorder (AsD), and their parents. Twenty two participants from ten families described both gains and costs resulting from diagnosis. Perceived…

In comprehensive, integrated, three-tiered models, it is essential to have a systematic method for identifying students who need supports at Tier 2 or Tier 3. This article provides explicit information on how to use multiple sources of data to determine which students might benefit from these supports. First, the authors provide an overview of how…