This article offers teachers a view of powerful instruction that empowers all students. The focus of the article is the following question: How can teachers more effectively respond to classroom diversity and help all students improve or "get smarter"? The remainder of the article defines high access instruction (HAI), contrasts high- and…

Students who are bright and have learning difficulties need to be carefully analyzed so that they can receive an appropriate program of rigor in areas of strength and supportive skill development in areas of need. Smart kids with learning difficulties can be successful in school when parents, teachers, and students create working partnerships.…

A proximal cause of reading disabilities is a deficit in phonological processing. A consequence of this deficit is inferior performance in one or more cognitive operations that use phonological information, including phonological awareness, lexical retrieval, and verbal memory. Some assert that these phonological processing difficulties are the…

Because of criticisms leveled at statistical hypothesis testing, some researchers have argued that measures of effect size should replace the significance-testing practice. We contend that although effect-size measures have logical appeal, they are also associated with a number of limitations that may result in problematic interpretations of them…

Dealing with the behavioral and academic problems of children with co-occurring learning disabilities and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) can be challenge for educators. One characteristic often associated with AD/HD is an inability to remain engaged in tasks for long periods of time. This lack of attentional focus often results…

Selected subtests from the Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Achievement (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001) were administered to three groups of university students. The groups included students with learning disabilities who received course substitutions for the institution's foreign language requirement, students with learning disabilities who…

An alternative to the IQ-achievement discrepancy model for identifying students with learning disabilities is the response to intervention (RTI) model. There is a growing literature base in support of the RTI model, and within the reauthorization of IDEA there is an allowance for an RTI approach whereby RTI "may" be used by school…

Background: Imagery rehearsal therapy for people who suffer from recurring nightmares has been shown to be a successful intervention. Very little research has been conducted on post-traumatic nightmare sufferers with learning disabilities. Method: This paper presents two case studies to illustrate the application of an adapted form of imagery…

The authors present a diagnostic profile of Gerstmann's syndrome, the subject being a girl, aged 10 years 3 months, right-handed, and at the time of this study in her fourth school year (Grade 4). The subject's verbal and non-verbal IQ scores and additional assessment data were analyzed and summative responses given. The Senior South African…

This article provides a brief overview of the various areas of research that have served to clarify the condition of dyslexia. Using topics and content appearing in A. L. Benton and D. Pearl's (1978) text, Dyslexia: An Appraisal of Current Knowledge, as the point of departure, evolution of the definitions of dyslexia is traced to the current and…

The issue of properly identifying and assessing the instructional needs of new- or second-language learners of English suspected of having a learning disability continues to plague educational practitioners. This article discusses the merging of curriculum-based measurement and dynamic assessment as a process to support appropriate prereferral…

This article describes a statewide project in which weekly progress monitoring of mathematics was implemented with 120 special education students. Curriculum-based measurement probes for computation and concepts/applications skills were administered weekly over seven months. Students were assessed at levels identified as instructional by their…

In this article, the ways in which special education for students with learning disabilities was perceived as "special" historically and what we know about effective special education instructional practices for students with learning disabilities currently are summarized. The influence of monitoring progress, providing explicit and systematic…

Five years ago, the author examined the extent and quality of education to students with disabilities in Texas's public charter schools. Many schools were designated "at-risk" because of the percentage of enrolled students who met the state's at-risk criteria. Students with learning disabilities and behavioral disorders made up the…

The purpose of the present study was to compare the everyday classroom practices of students with and without learning disabilities (LD) and attempt to predict those perceptions from classroom's motivational discourse and feelings of hopelessness. Two hundred thirty students with and without learning disabilities recorded their everyday classroom…