This article notes efforts to include attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as a formal disability category and challenges the validity of assumptions that ADHD is a psychiatric disorder and is characterized by academic difficulties. Social and cultural factors are seen as fueling the perceived need for the ADHD category. (Author/DB)

Although the number of students with behavior difficulties has increased, it has not been matched by a comparable increase in developing educator competencies to meet their needs. Educators must be given the necessary training, supported by solid research in best practices and quality schools. Individualized student plans involving family members…

A study examined the integrity with which four general education teachers implemented an intervention designed to improve the academic performance of elementary school students. The teachers markedly increased the integrity of the delivered treatment when they were provided with performance feedback and students' performance improved as integrity…

Presents results of a study of the school experiment "Integrative Elementary School" carried out in Hamburg (Germany) that aimed at keeping children with learning, language, or behavioral problems in the (regular) elementary school, which is furnished with additional teachers trained in special education. (CMK)

Twenty-six suggestions for setting up a class environment in which children with learning or behavior problems can develop friendships are presented, including integrating friendship into the curriculum, teaching necessary social skills, structuring successful recess and lunch periods, honoring children's friendships in placement decisions, and…

Twenty-eight experienced English language professionals were surveyed regarding the degree of difficulty students with deafness with and without learning disabilities might have in dealing with 30 specific English language phenomena. Spelling knowledge and a variety of English discourse, lexical, syntactic, and morphological phenomena emerged as…

Used semi-structured interviews to examine a grounded theory of beliefs that Canadian teachers and Japanese immigrant parents hold regarding schooling and learning. Results indicate that the participants' belief systems can consist of three layers: the general belief system concerning school and learning; opinions regarding learning difficulties;…

Explains that problem students will have an opportunity to succeed in their education if they are given a chance to attend a rehabilitation institution where they will interact with a community of their peers who all suffer from similar predicaments. Provides three examples of rehabilitation institutions in Russia. (CMK)

The growing population of English language learners (ELLs) in U.S. schools and the low academic achievement of many of these learners have been the subject of much debate. A significant related issue is determining the sources of ELLs' difficulty, namely, understanding the distinction between learning disabilities (LD) and learning difficulties…

This article is based on the text of the Gulliford Lecture given by Professor Harry Daniels at the University of Birmingham in October 2005. Professor Daniels takes, as his starting point, Ron Gulliford's assertion that teachers need to learn from their experience of trying to teach children who are "hard to teach". He goes on to look at…

In this era of No Child Left Behind, educators are urged to reach children with special needs. Learning to recognize these children and develop strategies for teaching them is a fundamental hurdle for new educators. Abuse, poverty, or malnutrition, for example, are among the circumstances of some children--circumstances which taken alone, may…

New research on premature babies shows that even infants born relatively late in gestation and with few complications have a significantly higher incidence of mild developmental delays and learning problems than the general population, difficulties that often remain undiagnosed until school age. The author argues that follow-up for all premature…

In this article, Anne-Marie Wright, lecturer at the University of Chester, considers the current situation for students with severe learning difficulties in general colleges of further education. She presents findings from a critical review of the literature and a small-scale preliminary investigation which set out to explore the idea that,…

It has been five years since the chapter on relative velocity was first introduced into the Singapore Additional Mathematics curriculum. This paper reports some general findings on the teaching of relative velocity in mathematics classrooms and the pupils' learning difficulties on relative velocity. Some implications to the teaching of this topic…

This paper presents primitive states of mind in an adopted child, which had been engendered by traumatic experiences in infancy and early childhood. Vignettes from her therapy illustrate difficulties in learning, speech and interaction, which were inhibiting her relationships with her adopted family from developing. The development of…