The growing population of English language learners (ELLs) in U.S. schools and the low academic achievement of many of these learners have been the subject of much debate. A significant related issue is determining the sources of ELLs' difficulty, namely, understanding the distinction between learning disabilities (LD) and learning difficulties…

Academic enabling behaviors play a significant role in the development of academically competent students. Academic enablers are behaviors that facilitate learning such as social skills, study skills, motivation, and engagement. In this study, teacher and student ratings were used to describe the academic enablers of a nationally representative…

This study examined literacy instruction in 14 first-grade classrooms of English learners (ELS) in three schools in a large urban school district in southern California over a two-year period. Pre- and posttest measures of oral-reading fluency for 186 first graders, representing 11 native languages, were the outcome data. Reading-fluency data were…

This article focuses on factors that impact identification of and services for English-language learners (ELLs) with suspected language-learning disabilities. These factors include (a) home and school environments, (b) the school's philosophy, (c) instructional strategies, and (d) other contextual variables that affect language use. In addition,…

Adult literacy education is increasingly focused on preparing adults with literacy skills for the world of work. Assumptions about how this goal is being met should be made with caution, given that adult education also serves other goals, adult educators have diverse training, and many adult students are presumed to have learning disabilities (LD)…

Vocational/employment and independent living for individuals with disabilities has been a major area of interest for those interested in transition from school to work and adulthood. Recent statistics for such individuals continue to be poor and problematic. The present study investigated a group of adults with either specific learning…

The purpose of this descriptive study was to investigate middle school general education mathematics teachers' beliefs and self-perceived knowledge regarding teaching students with learning disabilities (LD) in inclusive classrooms. Teacher beliefs regarding administrative support and higher education teacher preparation were also examined. The…

Recent consensus reports concur in suggesting major changes in the federal regulatory approach to the identification of learning disabilities (LD). These reports recommend abandoning the IQ-discrepancy model and the use of IQ tests for identification, and also recommend incorporation of response to instruction (RTI) as one of the identification…

Reading and writing deficits in two multilingual speakers of Kannada, Hindi and English are described. Disorders of the two patients (Mr G and Ms S) had different etiologies. Mr G had severe alexia with agraphia in English as well as in Kannada and Hindi. Ms S exhibited dissociation across the languages, showing symptoms of surface dyslexia in…

How verbal information is processed and recalled appears to be influenced by the structure of the information presented (e.g., unrelated sentences vs. narratives) and the processes the listener uses to encode the information (e.g., verbatim encoding vs. gist extraction). Twenty adults, half with a history of learning disabilities (HLD) and half…

Learning and behaviorally disordered students place high demands on classroom organization and management. They are time-consuming, since teachers must place much more attention on them than other children and teachers' efforts to cope with their learning and/or behaviors may not work as readily as teachers wish. Since compulsory education was…

The premise of a great deal of current research guiding policy development has been that accommodations are the catalyst for student performance differences. Rather than accepting this premise, two studies were conducted to investigate the influence of extended time and content knowledge on the performance of ninth-grade students who took a…

Researcher-teacher collaboration occurred during the design and implementation of self-management instruction for two middle school students with different disabilities and for two different target behaviors. One student with physical disabilities was taught to increase safe hall travel during school transitions, and the other student with…

There is a lack of literature on the transition to career for college graduates with learning disabilities (LD). The present study presents the results of 170 college graduates' written, open-ended responses related to how the transition to career may be improved. Responses focused upon two main categories, Suggestions for Programs and Suggestions…

A follow-up study was performed to investigate the stability of IQ measures in a group of dyslexic teenagers and young adults. Earlier research had shown contradictory results. The 65 subjects, 12 years old on the average at first test, were retested after a mean interval of six and a half years. There was a significant relative decrease in…