The most recent Office of Special Education report (2006) showed a persistent school completion gap between general education students and peers identified as having "high-incidence conditions," including a specific learning disability, behavior or emotional disability, other health impairment under Section 504, or milder levels of intellectual…

Commissioning has been defined as "The process of translating aspirations and need into timely and quality services" (CSCI 2006). This paper describes the development of some practical guidance for people involved in commissioning services for individuals with learning disabilities. A national conference was organised in November 2005 to…

This paper focusses on the need and benefit of using multimedia applications to cater to the needs of children with learning disabilities. The children with special educational needs found in various schools may face difficulties in acquiring academic skills such as reading, spelling, writing, speaking, understanding, listening, thinking or…

The number of students with disabilities arriving on college and university campuses is increasing. Of those students reporting a disability, over half of them state they have a learning disability. Unlike high school, the burden is on the student in college to demonstrate the need for services and communicate this need to the institution in a…

Student hope and effort are often considered by educators to be important factors related to learning and achievement. Yet few studies have been conducted to understand the relation between these constructs and achievement motivation, particularly within the academically vulnerable population of students with learning disabilities (LD). The…

Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences has impacted the educational community since its inception in 1983. The theory became the framework for Gifted and Talented Education, in that it broaden the scope of giftedness to be defined in the context of students being identified with nontraditional gifts and talents as well as combinations…

The purpose of this paper is threefold: (1) to provide information to policymakers and government personnel who support and develop workforce development programming, policies and practices for youth, including those with learning disabilities (LD); (2) to provide a national view of the literacy and employment status of youth with LD who have low…

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to describe and better understand the meaning, structure, and essence of the experience of learning for adults labeled with learning disabilities as perceived by adults labeled with a "learning disability." Through a purposeful sampling method, six participants were chosen to participate in recorded…

This study examined the unanticipated effects that children with learning disabilities have on the life of their families. Eleven parents of students aged 8 to 16 years old participated in two separate focus group interviews. Findings showed that children with learning disabilities had a range of effects on their families. These included family…

In this article, the authors recall how the Academy in Manayunk adopted the famous Sally Smith's club methodology. They share how the influence of Smith pushed the school faculty and staff to create a school that focuses on the individual child and celebrates the unique talents and interests that each brings to the learning community. It is based…

The collection of articles in this special issue and related studies over the past decade provides a fine example of the substantial progress that has been made in our understanding and remediation of mathematical learning disabilities and difficulties since 1993 (Geary, 1993). The originally proposed procedural and retrieval deficits have been…

For middle school students with learning disabilities (LD), one major component of learning in content area classes, such as science, involves listening to lectures and recording notes. Lecture learning and note-taking are critical skills for students to succeed in these classes. Despite the importance of note-taking skills, no research has been…

The purpose of this article was twofold: (1) to explore the feasibility of the regression discontinuity design (RDD) in response-to-intervention implementation research and (2) to expand upon the limited research on vocabulary instruction for kindergarten students who are at risk for reading failure due to limited vocabularies. This pilot study…

To improve student success in mathematics, the use of research-based interventions is necessary to help secondary students with learning disabilities (LD) access the algebra curriculum. The authors provide an overview of the following research-based approaches: explicit instruction, graduated instructional sequence, technology, and graphic…

This work was a follow-up study (birth years 1999-2003) of the prevalence of autism in children of Somali background living in the county of Stockholm, Sweden. In a previous study (birth years 1988-98), the prevalence of autism associated with learning disability was found to be three to four times higher among Somali children compared with other…