The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHCA) was legislated in 1975 in part to provide funding to states, parent centers, and research centers, for supporting access to public education for students with disabilities. In 1975, the intent of EHCA was to find children with disabilities and ensure that children were evaluated, identified,…

This article focuses on some of the linguistic components that underlie letter-sound decoding skills and reading comprehension: specifically phonology, morphology, and syntax. Many children who have reading difficulties had language deficits that were detectable before they began reading. Early identification of language difficulties will…

Multiple studies have shown that kindergarten measures of phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge are good predictors of reading achievement in the primary grades. However, less attention has been given to the early predictors of later reading achievement. This study used a modified best-subsets variable-selection technique to examine…

This study examined the development of reading and phonological processing abilities of 209 first graders assessed at the beginning and end of the school year. The discriminant analysis, based on reading and intelligence data, correctly identified later group membership (students with and without reading disabilities and "garden variety" poor…

Three rating scales--the Conners Parent-Teacher Questionnaire, the Queensland Teacher Questionnaire, and the Pittsburg Adjustment Scale--were used to assess the prevalence of hyperactivity among 1908 elementary children. Rates varied from 5 percent to 8.9 percent, with the overlap going 3.5 percent and the sum of those identified 12 percent. (CL)

Results of surveying of 41 teachers who had experience with learning disability preassessment teams (intended to focus on regular classroom intervention prior to comprehensive evaluation) suggested that teachers were pleased with preassessment team members but did not agree that the teams' intervention recommendations were successful in correcting…

An economical procedure for identifying the dyslexic child is described using a parent questionnaire, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (particularly noting behavioral idiosyncrasies), a brief sentence reading test, a brief spelling test, and lateralty tests. Procedures for synthesizing the evaluation information are considered.…

An ethnographic study of one elementary bilingual special education classroom found three profile types of students, ranging from severe language learning disabilities to normal abilities. Results show the inadequacy of the medical model and support a contextual performance view that acknowledges the role of instructional context in revealing the…

Paraprofessional training in administration and scoring of educational and psychological tests for learning disability diagnosis is examined, and it is concluded that projected disadvantages outweigh advantages, indicating caution in adopting the practice. (Author/CL)

The problem of choosing educational and psychological tests to identify students with learning disabilities is discussed within a cost-efficiency framework. An efficiency index for estimating the classification accuracy of tests is presented and the use of expert judgment and the cost-effectiveness ratio is demonstrated with a numerical example.…

Investigated with 333 children in grades 4 and 6 of three western Canadian urban public schools was the relationship between diagnosis of learning disabilities (LD) and socioeconomic status (SES). (Author/IM)

Discusses how the Guckenberger v Boston University case illustrates the interaction of the psychometrics of ability differences with the concept of learning disability and with the sociopolitics of schooling and society. Urges a more inclusive definition of learning disability which abandons aptitude-achievement discrepancy requirements and a more…

This study examined the accuracy of teacher (N=51) assessments in screening for reading disabilities among Grade 1 students of English as a second language (N=249) and as a first language (N=120). Results indicated that teacher rating scales and nominations had low sensitivity in identifying reading disability in either group as determined by a…

In this study, we examined the characteristics of reading disability (RD) in the seventh grade of the Greek educational system and the corresponding diagnostic practice. We presented a clinically administered assessment battery, composed of typically employed tasks, and a fully automated, computer-based assessment battery that evaluates some of…

Following its administration to 215 students (117 classified as regular and 98 as learning disabled), the Junior-Senior High School Personality Questionnaire (HSPQ) was reported to be useful as a differentiating diagnostic instrument, and was recommended as a screening device and as a measure of continuing progress. (JW)