An elementary school principal and mother of a son with learning disabilities (LD) offers a personal perspective on educational trends such as resource rooms, content mastery, and inclusion. The paper argues that regular classroom teachers are not trained to teach LD students and that adequate support for mainstreamed LD students would be…

High school students with learning disabilities (LD), low achievement, or average achievement responded, several times daily, to questions concerning levels of affect, activation, cognitive efficiency, self-esteem, motivation, and feedback from others. LD students reported feeling more positive and active than the other groups during school hours;…

Physical fitness of children with learning disabilities may be comparatively low. In a school-university cooperative program, four rural children with learning disabilities and their families participated in a 10-week fitness program that included nutrition education and family exercise activities. Results were positive and showed the need for…

Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study and applying hierarchical linear modeling, this study found a strong gap in achievement in math and science between adolescents with and without learning disabilities (LD). The gap was reduced for LD adolescents who did not make a school transition until at least ninth grade. (DB)

Describes the use of activity boxes with 43 young children with blindness, deaf-blindness, or severe learning disabilities and visual impairments. Discusses the contribution such boxes make to intellectual development, particularly the development of voluntary hand function from the integration of the primitive grasp-and-release instincts shown by…

The effectiveness of instruction in word-problem solving for students with learning problems in 25 outcome studies was examined across student characteristics, instructional features, methodological features, skill maintenance, and generalization components. Computer-assisted instruction was found to be most effective for group-design studies;…

Seventeen fourth and fifth graders with severe writing disabilities received a weekly one-hour individual tutorial which focused equally on transcription (handwriting and spelling) and composition skills. Students showed reliable improvement in composition and handwriting automaticity but not in spelling. Suggestions for teaching phonological…

Defines four roles that media specialists should assume in the management of students with learning differences. These include disseminating information to classroom teachers and parents about diagnosing/managing students with learning differences, collaborating with colleagues in educational-technology selection, working one-on-one with students,…

Describes the use of computer-supported studying as an approach to helping students with disabilities develop and apply skills needed for successful transition from secondary to postsecondary education. Vignettes of three students with learning disabilities illustrate the success of computer-supported studying. (Author/CR)

Presents a 71-item annotated bibliography of selected children's books (published between 1992 and 1996) dealing with disabilities, along with a brief description of criteria used to evaluate the books. Includes sections on AIDS, asthma, autism, blindness, deafness, dyslexia, mental disabilities, and physical disabilities. (RS)

Reviews recent applied instructional research for students with learning disabilities for the purpose of providing educators and counselors with the background and logic behind the development of current instructional practices. Topics include procedural prompts, scaffolds, cognitive strategies, story grammar, think sheets, anchored instruction,…

Examined technical and adaptive competence in coping among 97 African-American adolescents with learning disabilities. Findings indicated that short-term, reactive, technical competence was a better predictor of feelings of efficacy, and longer-term, developmental adaptive competence was a better predictor of behavioral problems. Gender subsample…

Information recorded on Transition Planning Guides was compared with the perceptions of 22 students with learning disabilities and their parents regarding postsecondary goals and anticipated support needs. Findings indicate little relationship between the postsecondary outcomes and support needs recorded and those expressed by students and parents…

A study examined attitudes of 20 rural Mississippi elementary and secondary general education teachers toward accommodations/modifications for learning disabled students in their classrooms. Respondents favored accommodations that did not alter the content to be learned, were less intrusive to daily teaching procedures, took the least amount of…

Five rural fifth- and sixth-grade students with learning disabilities moved from a separate special education program to an inclusive program. Parents and students reported increased self-confidence and self-esteem, camaraderie, support of the teachers, and higher expectations. Teachers reported increased student confidence, improved academic…