The study investigated the compensatory effectiveness of the Quicktionary Reading Pen II (the Reading Pen), a portable device with miniaturized optical character recognition and speech synthesis capabilities. Thirty participants with reading disabilities aged 10-18 were trained on the operation of the technology and given two weeks to practice…

Background: Many people with learning disabilities (LD) show aggressive behaviour, but the extent of the problem and its associated factors and effects are unclear. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis was carried out using interview data from 3065 adults with LD on the Leicestershire LD Register. Physical aggression towards others was defined as…

This study examined in depth a group of adolescents (n = 12) who were identified as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The group was identified as part of a longitudinal study of students who were screened in primary school as at risk for developing emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) and peers who were identified as not…

This article is based on the presidential address I delivered at the 12th annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, held in June 2005 in Toronto. I trace the development of my interest in instructional research in, first, beginning reading and, more recently, in comprehension, and I describe studies designed to improve the…

Carers' behaviour is thought to contribute to the development and maintenance of challenging behaviour in people with learning disabilities (Emerson et al. 1995; Hastings & Remington 1994). The present study sought to investigate the effectiveness of a behavioural intervention in the management of such problem behaviours by means of a long-term…

This study addresses parental perspectives and coping strategies related to Duchenne muscular dystrophy and specific learning disabilities. Data were collected through individual semi-structured in-depth interviews with fifteen sets of parents. Participants were selected based on variables such as age of children, number of children with both…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) firmly insists that performance analyses use disaggregated scores. Disaggregation, according to NCLB, involves measuring and reporting achievement for separate subgroups of children so that achievement problems in any one subgroup are not disguised when averaged or aggregated with higher achieving children in…

The number of students with learning or psychiatric disabilities entering college continues to increase. When advisors are unaware of a student's disability, they are unable to provide direction and appropriate referrals, leaving the student uninformed of the assistance available to him or her. As a result, the educational process may be…

The ever-broadening roles of school counselors range from traditional (advisor for college planning) to novel (advocating for students with learning difficulties or giftedness). A newly recognized group of learners, with both learning difficulties and academic strengths, known as twice-exceptional learners, has emerged. After a synopsis of federal…

There is a significant overlap between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disability (LD) student populations. The inattentive subtype of students with ADHD, in particular, is difficult to differentiate from students with LD. What differentiates between these groups can be seen in their regulation of behavior and…

People with Williams syndrome are extremely sociable, empathic, and expressive in communication. Some researchers suggest they may be especially sensitive to perceiving emotional expressions. We administered the Faces and Paralanguage subtests of the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy Scale (DANVA2), a standardized measure of emotion…

Colleagues in the field of mental health have made considerable progress developing inventories of evidence-based practice; however, the field of special education for children with emotional or behavioral disorders has only recently begun to do so. This paper provides some personal reflections on four major issues for consideration as we pursue…

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the regulation of goal orientations and strong "oughts" in students with learning disabilities (LD). Participants were 132 Greek students with state-identified LD using the achievement-discrepancy criterion, and 538 typical students. The first hypothesis tested was that feeling obliged to…

Limited research exists related to the employment outcomes of adults with learning disabilities (LD) who graduate from postsecondary institutions. The current study presents the results of a followup investigation of 500 graduates with LD from three universities in the United States. Results indicated that levels of full-time employment,…

Culturally and educationally, the United States specializes in the production of kinds of persons described first by ethnic, racial, and linguistic lines and second by supposed mental abilities. Overlaps between the two systems of classification are frequent, systematically haphazard, and often deleterious. An examination of classrooms around the…