The authentic professional development (APD) model is presented as an effective approach for providing professional development for teachers of classes that include students with learning disabilities. A study involving 57 teachers indicated higher implementation rates in classrooms of teachers who participated in the APD model rather than…

Of 129 technical college freshmen who had self-identified as having a learning disorder, scores of 72 who used extended time for math placement testing were compared with those of 57 who did not. Extended time did not necessarily result in higher scores. (Contains 20 references.) (JOW)

This study examined the perceptions of 58 special education administrators and 204 principals on the effect of requiring a minimum competency graduation examination for students with learning disabilities. Administrators felt the requirement would promote inclusive education but that without additional resources some students would experience…

This article examines issues in the measurement of quality of life (QOL) within the field of learning disabilities. Discussion considers objective and subjective measures, value-based and value-free approaches, and traditional versus participatory approaches. The issue of using self-reports or proxies to gather and measure QOL data is addressed. A…

Compared participants in a peer-based coaching program for students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities to non-participants. Found that peer-based support may be an effective means for enhancing general self-efficacy as well as some key areas of learning strategies and study skills for college students…

Measured the psychosocial development of college students with and without learning disabilities using the Student Developmental Task and Lifestyle Inventory. Found significant differences between groups in terms of their academic autonomy and mature interpersonal relationships. (EV)

This study of 87 children (ages 9-11) with learning disabilities found that self-perception of one's learning disability was positively related to both academic self- concept and self-esteem, even when controlling for sex, ethnicity, age, reading and math achievement, self-contained versus mainstreamed setting, and age at diagnosis. (Author/JDD)

Strategies are presented for dealing with factors that can be responsible for failure in mathematical problem solving. The suggestions include personalization of verbal problems, thematic strands based on student interests, visual representation, a laboratory approach, and paraphrasing. (JDD)

This article describes the concept and varieties of mnemonic instruction and how mnemonics interacts with the specific learning characteristics of learning-disabled students. The effectiveness of the techniques, as reported in research studies, is described. Implications for classroom instruction and further research are provided. (DB)

Sixty-seven learning-disabled (LD) adolescents attending vocational-technical schools completed a self-management training program. Results showed improvements in the problem-solving and job-related social skills of LD students who received the self-management training program compared to both LD and non-LD students who were not trained.…

In response to Poplin (EC 210 561) and Heshusius (EC 220 916), the paper stresses that holism and empiricism are not dichotomous paradigms and that learning-disabled students require instruction which recognizes individual differences, the meaning inherent in structure and pattern, and accountability consistent with the paradigm being applied. (DB)

The study found that a curriculum which incorporated three empirically derived principles of curriculum design (e.g., use of a wide range of examples to illustrate each concept) was significantly more effective than a basal approach in teaching fractions concepts to 40 low-performing or learning-disabled high school students. (Author/DB)

Hierarchical analysis of a test battery of sentence span, preload, and concurrent memory demand tasks was used to identify subgroups of children with different patterns of memory function. For each subgroup, performance strengths and weaknesses were related to reading, mathematics, and spelling performance. (Author/DB)

Adolescents (n=25) with learning disabilities were randomly assigned to either mnemonic conditions or experimenter-directed rehearsal conditions and individually taught difficult vocabulary words, half abstract and half concrete. Results included higher scores on both recall and comprehension tests by mnemonically trained students for both…

The strategies instructional approach developed at the University of Kansas Institute for Research in Learning Disabilities is described. The approach teaches students strategies in the academic, social, motivational, and executive functioning areas that will enable students to meet content learning demands and modifies instructional environments…