The goal of this commentary is to focus attention on the various protective factors examined by the four studies of this special issue, in order to predict resilient functioning. These factors include internal factors (cognitive information processing, affective information processing-the attachment-proximity conceptualization) as well as external…

Three studies investigated 98 children's and 252 adults' implicit knowledge about learning disabilities. Overall, the studies suggested that professionals outside the field of special education, as well as nondisabled children, have fairly well-developed ideas about what constitutes a learning disability. Exemplars of tacit knowledge matched most…

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a neurogenetic developmental disorder that presents with progressive muscular weakness. It is caused by a mutation in a gene that results in the absence of specific products that normally localize to muscle cells and the central nervous system (CNS). The majority of affected individuals have IQs within the…

Comparison of the ability of 74 children with and 19 children without learning disabilities (LD) at three age levels to identify expressions of emotions through facial, posture, and gesture cues found that LD children identified fewer emotions but did show some age progression. Some emotions were more readily identified than others. Most gender…

This article traces the development of 22 children with learning disabilities and 22 controls at ages 1, 2, 10, 18, and 32 years. Most learning-disabled individuals made a successful adaptation to adult life, with marriage, divorce, and employment rates similar to the cohort as a whole. Clusters of protective factors were identified. (Author/DB)