This review surveys the empirical literature for assessments of learning problems in children from a neuropsychological perspective. An evaluation of children with learning problems must consider measures of working memory, attention, executive function, and comprehension (listening and written), particularly for children who do not respond to…

The Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA; 2004) permitted lack of students' response to intervention (RTI) to be considered as a basis for documenting specific learning disabilities (SLD). The previous method of detecting SLD, which relied on IQ and achievement testing, consequently is no longer mandatory.…

Background: A growing shortage of residential care for people with learning disabilities leads to placement funded by one authority in another authority's area. Such out-of-area placements are governed by guidance from different government departments in respect of different funding streams. Method: This paper presents an analysis of this guidance…

In the UK, the ethics of engaging in sociological research directly involving children have primarily been shaped by definitions of "competence". While this has been a crucial guideline for researchers in shaping the concept of informed consent, it has also acted, perhaps inadvertently, as a way of excluding particular children from the…

This study had two purposes. First, we sought to compare the overall effectiveness of different types of fluency interventions for students with learning disabilities (LD). Second, we attempted to identify how individual- and class-level characteristics moderated each intervention's effectiveness. We used multilevel random coefficient modeling to…

The modern special education theater in the United States has hosted many plays, none with a larger or more diverse cast than the learning disabilities (LD) play. During the prologue, the children with LD were waiting in the wings, not yet identified as LD but there, nonetheless. With the advent of compulsory education in this country, awareness…

Three broad issues continue to dramatically impact the education of children with specific learning disabilities (SLD): (1) the development and implementation of scientifically defensible methods of identification; (2) the development and implementation of scientific interventions to ensure that children with SLD have access to and make progress…

Beginning in 1983 with the Connecticut Longitudinal Study (Shaywitz, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1992), with additions to the NICHD research program in 1987 (Lyon, 1996), educators were able to initiate new multidisciplinary prospective, longitudinal studies to define and classify LDs, to identify the multiple factors responsible for their presentation,…

Recent clinical observations, in the absence of experimental data, appear to suggest that written expression in conduction aphasics parallels their speech (Goodglass, 1992). The current study undertakes an analysis of word level writing in two conduction aphasics, and attempts to explore the posited 'parallel' relationship between speech…

This study investigates the factors that influence whether teachers with learning disabilities (LD) choose to disclose their disability status within public school settings. Four special education teachers who self-identify as having LD identify and clarify the complex, ongoing issues that "disability disclosure" raises in educational…

In this article Liz O'Brien discusses the need for a distinctive approach to the religious education of children and young people with autism and/or severe and complex learning disabilities. She describes how an imaginative and creative approach, built on an underlying principle of understanding, empathy and respect in relation to the culture of…

This article presents the results of a qualitative study which examined the experiences of students with learning disabilities who had managed to reach university. The purpose was to identify factors in the lives of these students that, from their own accounts, had promoted academic success despite the high failure rates that are typical for this…

The neuropsychological underpinnings of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Reading Disability (RD) and their comorbidity may be studied usefully with the double dissociation design. The results of studies using the double dissociation method may be linked to the search for an endophenotype of ADHD and RD and their comorbidity.…

The authors reviewed recent quantitative genetic research on learning disabilities that led to the conclusion that genetic diagnoses differ from traditional diagnoses in that the effects of relevant genes are largely general rather than specific. This research suggests that most genes associated with common learning disabilities--language…

Research on resilience holds great promise, for if the mechanisms and processes by which it occurs could be understood, the possibility exists of fostering resilience through preventive interventions and programming (Doll & Lyon, 1998). The challenge to researchers is to discover what conditions encourage resilience, and the challenge to educators…