This article chronicles a teacher's journey from resource teacher for students with learning disabilities (LD) to novice inclusion teacher and then expert inclusion specialist over a 7-year period. It concludes that the teacher's interpersonal and communication skills are most important, although skill at anticipating student difficulties and…

This article summarizes viewpoints expressed at a British special education conference on whether it matters if children acquire a standard pencil grip. Some participants felt children should be encouraged to use the standard tripod grip, while others believed children should be allowed to choose their own style of grip. (CR)

Four middle school students with learning disabilities and low mathematics performance received schema strategy training in problem schemata (conceptual understanding) and problem solution (procedural understanding). Results indicated that the schema-based strategy was effective in substantially increasing the number of correctly solved word…

A study involving 111 secondary students with learning disabilities investigated differential reading performance on narrative versus expository text. Students had more difficulty with expository text than with narrative text in terms of reading fluency and comprehension. However, effects for comprehension were mediated by the type of question…

Relations among social status, current service delivery, and service delivery preferences were examined in 42 students with learning disabilities (LD), 40 low-achieving, and 42 average/high-achieving students in grades 2-4 and 6-7. Most students preferred pullout service to in-class service. Only among LD students were self- and peer-rated social…

Describes a multisensory approach to making science accessible to students with profound learning disabilities. (WRM)

Twenty students with learning disabilities in inclusive fourth and fifth grades were interviewed to determine their experience with school-related loneliness and coping strategies. Most students felt lonely at school when they were bored or lacked a companion and coped by engaging in a solitary activity or seeking companionship. (Contains…

This study surveyed 162 faculty at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, concerning instructional accommodations for students with learning disabilities. Respondents' beliefs about the helpfulness of and need for instructional accommodations were associated with the faculty provision of accommodations. Also, a perception of support from the…

Forty Spanish-speaking children with reading disability (RD) were matched for age and reading level with normal readers. Since RD children performed more poorly than younger normal readers on a word/nonword naming task in orthographically transparent Spanish, results suggest their poor phonological skills were due to a deficit in phonological…

Discusses issues surrounding classroom-based assessment of writing. Describes the author's own experiences in developing and using a formative evaluation system for middle school students with learning problems; and discusses issues related to the linkage between assessment and instruction. Suggests matters of technical adequacy are as important…

Shares observations about implementation issues that have emerged during efforts to find and evaluate computer-based solutions for students' learning and studying problems. Notes these issues fall into five topic areas: access issues, motivational issues, curriculum integration issues, labeling issues, and funding issues. Describes each issue,…

The prevalence of learning disabilities (LD) was studied in 233 students (ages 6-16) newly identified with behavioral disorders. Overall, 53.2 percent met at least one LD definition, ranging from 15.9 percent for low achievement to 42.9 percent for regression. Almost one-quarter showed overlapping between low achievement and discrepancy…

Responds to an article on learning disabilities and foreign language learning. Discusses assumptions about students classified as learning disabled (LD) with foreign language learning problems, and the assumption that students classified as LD need a different approach. (Author/VWL)

Responds to an article on learning disabilities and foreign language learning. Highlights the distortions and omissions in that article. (Author/VWL)

Two experiments found that German-speaking dyslexic 9-year-olds showed impaired learning of pseudonames in several visual-verbal learning tasks, even when phonological retrieval cues were provided and when pseudonames were presented in spoken and printed form. There was no deficit when short, familiar words were used, and no difficulty in…