Little research on literacy learning in persons with developmental disabilities has been done. The little that does exist makes clear that some individuals with autism can, and do, learn to read. Adults and adolescents with cognitive impairments have received greater research attention than have others with developmental disabilities. Subjects with a wide range of cognitive skills have demonstrated the ability to learn single words in a variety of contexts under a variety of conditions. The few studies that have investigated areas such as reading comprehension and generative writing appear to indicate that individuals with significant cognitive impairments can, and do, demonstrate higher level literacy competencies when provided with appropriate instruction, experiences, and opportunities. Studies of literacy in adults with cerebral palsy (CP) have examined word and subword performance as well as sentence-level and text-level performance. Instructional strategies have been designed and studied experimentally. Several studies have profiled the literacy performance of individuals with CP on a variety of tasks. A future research agenda might include the following: literacy learning and instruction in adults with developmental disabilities; research designs; literacy assessments validated for use with adults who have developmental disabilities; best practices in literacy; and contexts that support literacy learning for adults with developmental disabilities. (Contains 124 references.) (YLB)