Twenty-four learning disabled (LD) elementary grade children were given spelling lessons incorporating reduced unit size, distributed practice and review, and training for transfer. Ss scored higher on a posttest measure than a comparison group that had received more traditional lessons. (CL)

The author's findings about the effects of learning disabilities on adolescents are detailed according to four major areas (sample subtopics in parentheses): academic achievement and ability (low achievement and underachievement); cognitive processing (relationship between motivation and strategy use); setting demands (independent functioning);…

An approach to teaching writing and reading to learning disabled adolescents involves controlling the vowel from the simplist word constructions to the most difficult of orthographic constructions. Teaching strategies are based on a model that views most words as regular (categorical)--some more regular (categorical) than others. (Author)

Two studies which extend previous research describing differences in teacher instructional behavior with high- and low-progress beginning readers are reported. In both studies inter- and intra-individual differences over time showed that higher reader accuracy was associated with less direct support. (Author)

Suggests ways for the regular classroom teacher to cope with learning disabled students in a mainstreamed setting. (AH)

The process of writing a play serves as a remediation method for developing writing skills in the learning disabled student. The case of an 11-year-old student, who neither writes nor spells, illustrates this method. (SB)

The "Rewriting Technique" (which reduces a textbook chapter, article, or story to a desired reading level) is a method for meeting the reading needs of secondary level learning disabled students. (SW)

The author discusses the difficulty of noncontent words for children with poor reading skills and advocates a sentence-based program of instruction which has been successfully used to teach noncontent words to learning/language disabled children from 6 to 12 years old. (CL)

The author suggests an intellectual approach to teaching learning handicapped students to write. The effectiveness of the developmental writing approach is supported by a study in which teachers were trained according to five propositions, including that all writing is thoughtful, and that writing is concerned with content. (CL)

Ten suggestions for improving the social skills of learning disabled students include teaching the child to make eye contact while talking, explaining implications of voice qualities, role playing to examine emotions, and providing direct instruction on appropriate responses in social situations. (CL)

Thirty learning disabled children were randomly assigned to two conditions focusing on sentence comprehension: a sentence anagram/word grouping treatment and a more traditional sentence study treatment. Subjects in the sentence anagram/word grouping condition had significantly higher cloze scores. (Author/BW)

An 11 year old learning disabled boy was taught two different strategies, both of which markedly improved his handwriting performance on a paragraph copying task. Results for the study indicated that allowing the student his choice of strategies produced better performance than did teacher determined choices. (Author)

The use of instructional expedients, practices (such as grading) that are distinct from learning objectives but help to implement those objectives, is discussed, particularly as it relates to language instruction. (SBH)

Among findings are that issues involving teaching techniques, teacher training, and problems of definition are the main areas needing resolution; that better teaching techniques for children with learning disabilities are of paramount importance; and that some 60 percent of 108 survey respondents considered reading to be the most important…

Uses the language experience approach with a state driver's manual to teach disabled adolescent readers and educable mentally retarded students. (RS)