A social skills curriculum for learning disabled students involves assessing strengths and weaknesses, choosing target skills, and teaching target skills. In the area of nonverbal communication, suggested activities can help students understand facial expressions, gestures, and vocal intonation. Opportunities should be provided to practice new…

The study analyzed oral reading miscues in both first and second reading languages of 20 Hispanic successful and 20 learning disabled readers in the intermediate grades. Significant differences were found for English reading in grammatical relationships, comprehension, and grammatical function. (Author/DB)

A program was developed for a 14-year-old learning disabled student with severe discipline and absenteeism problems who was enrolled in a rural elementary school. He successfully earned points toward rewards for appropriate behavior while working in the mainstream classes, in the resource room, with younger children, and in the office. (VW)

Concept of "special education" focuses on schools' duty to develop programs that include and educate even the most difficult of the disabled. The concept of "school failure" puts the responsibility on the students, excluding them, though they also have a "disability.""Zero reject" concept, which includes all students, is recommended. (PS)

Suggestions for successfully teaching severely reading disabled adolescents are presented in terms of: preparing for instruction (analyze students' instructional and achievement histories, identify current reading demands); providing direct instruction (solicit active student involvement, individualize instructional activities); and monitoring…

Briefly outlines the National Research Council's 1979 study of minority student representation in special education classes. Outlines results from recent study analyzing the ethnic make-up of children labeled "learning disabled" in a large school district in Texas. Results indicate that a disproportionate number of minority students are…

Sampled high school students (N=192) to determine whether the Self-Directed Search (SDS) and Self-Directed Search-Form Easy (SDS-E) are alternate forms for learning-disabled high school students. Found initial evidence that the SDS-E may be more appropriate than is the SDS for use with learning disabled high school students. (Author/ABB)

Describes a metacognitive strategy that has shown the ability to improve the reading comprehension of poor readers and learning disabled adolescents. (FL)

Two case studies involving preschool children with developmental learning disabilities (one with nystagmus and one with a hearing impairment) point to the need for appropriate ability as well as disability identification and assessment procedures (both had been diagnosed as mentally retarded) the potential of early diagnosis and intervention for…

Some research about students with learning disabilities that textbook publishers need to consider as they revise problem-solving materials is briefly cited. (MNS)

Discusses ways of identifying and helping gifted-disabled students--students who possess high intellectual abilities but also have some learning disorder. (FL)

An intermediate grade music teacher describes how a learning disabled child with problems ranging from fine motor coordination to right/left orientation difficulty turned out to be a fine clarinetist with a fantastic ability to memorize music. (RM)

Using the Classroom Behavior Inventory, teachers rated the behaviors of 63 school-identified, learning-disabled first and second graders. Hierarchical cluster analysis techniques identified seven distinct behavioral subtypes. Internal validation techniques indicated that the subtypes were replicable and had profile patterns different from a sample…

Investigates the extent to which learning disabled readers' atypical encoding relates to their deficiencies in semantic memory by comparing learning disabled and nondisabled readers in two age groups on dichotic listening tasks that included orienting and nonorienting instructions. (HOD)

Issues and needs identified in a 1984 survey of professionals in the field of learning disabilities are summarized and grouped as follows: (1) theory and research; (2) practice and related applied research (subtyping, differential programming, intervention focus, efficacy, and prevention/early intervention); (3) training (including categorical…