Potential utility of actuarial methods for identifying specific learning disabilities

This article describes how actuarial methods can supplant discrepancy models and augment problem solving and Response to Intervention (RTI) efforts by guiding the process of identifying specific learning disabilities (SLD). Actuarial methods use routinized selection and execution of formulas derived from empirically established relationships to make predictions that fall within a plausible range of possible future outcomes. In the case of SLD identification, the extent to which predictions are reasonable can be evaluated by their ability to categorize large segments of the population into subgroups that vary considerably along a spectrum of risk for academic failure. Although empirical comparisons of actuarial methods to clinical judgment reveal that actuarial methods consistently outperform clinical judgment, multidisciplinary teams charged with identifying SLD currently rely on clinical judgment. Actuarial methods provide educators with an empirically verifiable indicator of student need for special education and related services that could be used to estimate the relative effects of exclusionary criteria. This indicator would provide a defensible endpoint in the process of identifying SLD as well as a means of informing and improving the SLD identification process. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

An outcome study of an early intervention for specific learning disabilities

Subjects at risk for specific learning disabilities were assessed on standardized measures throughout elementary and middle school following an intervention based on task analysis of kindergarten curricula and team teaching. All results were significant for the treatment group in relation to an at-risk cohort and comparable to a current random cohort and national averages.     

Evaluation of a tangible mobile application for students with specific learning disabilities

Students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) typically do not perform at the expected levels of academic achievement. Tangible mobile applications are learning devices that allow for physical engagement and multisensory interaction. They present as promising tools to facilitate learning for students with SLD. This study explored the use of a tangible mobile application for assisting three seventh-grade Turkish students with SLD to learn scientific principles regarding cell concepts. A multiple-probe design across participants was used to examine the effectiveness of a tangible mobile application. In addition, issues related to usability of the application were also explored. The overall results of the study showed that the tangible mobile application was effective, and the students with SLD were willing to use this application, enjoyed the process, and used the application and objects easily/correctly.     

The relation between sense of audience and specific learning disabilities: An exploration

The relationship between two college-able learning-disabled writers’ unique social and cognitive profiles and the sense of audience in their written texts is explored. The first student demonstrated significant visual and organizational cognitive processing deficits. The second student had deficits in oral language comprehension and production. While the writing of both students was affected by their disabilities, our findings suggest that the quality of their audience awareness is indeed related to the nature of their specific learning disability profile.     

Mathematics and learning disabilities

Between 5% and 8% of school-age children have some form of memory or cognitive deficit that interferes with their ability to learn concepts or procedures in one or more mathematical domains. A review of the arithmetical competencies of these children is provided, along with discussion of underlying memory and cognitive deficits and potential neural correlates. The deficits are discussed in terms of three subtypes of mathematics learning disability and in terms of a more general framework for linking research in mathematical cognition to research in learning disabilities.     

Comprehension of humor in children with nonverbal learning disabilities,reading disabilities,and without learning disabilities

The normal development of humor in children has been well documented with a predictable course that is tied to social, cognitive, and linguistic development in children. This study explored humor comprehension in children with nonverbal learning disabilities (NVLD). Children with NVLD were compared with children with reading disabilities and a comparison group of children with no learning disabilities to assess their comprehension of humor. The humor test was composed of a joke and cartoon section. No group differences in humor comprehension were found when the NVLD group was defined as having visual–spatial and visual reasoning deficits. However, when the NVLD group was divided into children with and without social perceptual difficulties as defined by a direct measure of social comprehension, significant group differences were found in the levels of humor comprehension. These results support the association of humor comprehension with social perception and lend tentative support to the hypothesis that children with NVLD may not be a homogenous group. Future study directions include further exploration into the nature of the association between humor comprehension and social perception as well as closer examination of the heterogeneity of NVLD.     

Effective literacy instruction for adults with specific learning disabilities: implications for adult educators

Adults with learning disabilities (LD) attending adult basic education, GED programs, or community colleges are among the lowest performers on measures of literacy. For example, on multiple measures of reading comprehension, adults with LD had a mean reading score at the third grade level, whereas adults without LD read at the fifth grade level. In addition, large numbers of adults perform at the lowest skill levels on quantitative tasks. Clearly, significant instructional challenges exist for adults who struggle with literacy issues, and those challenges can be greater for adults with LD. In this article, the literature on adults with LD is reviewed, and evidenced-based instructional practices that significantly narrow the literacy achievement gap for this population are identified. Primary attention is given to instructional factors that have been shown to affect literacy outcomes for adults with LD. These factors include the use of explicit instruction, instructional technology, and intensive tutoring in skills and strategies embedded in authentic contexts.     

The sociopsychometrics of learning disabilities

The Boston University (BU) case illustrates how the psychometrics of ability differences interact with the concept of learning disability and with the sociopolitics of schooling and society. It also illustrates that learning disabilities advocacy will not be on a sound footing as long as the field refuses to rid itself of its IQ fetishism, refuses to jettison its fixation on aptitude-achievement discrepancy, and fails to free clinical practice from the pseudoscientific neurology that plagued the field in the 1970s. A more inclusive definition of learning disability--one that abandons discrepancy notions--and a more self-critical attitude toward its own claims would advance the field of learning disabilities and help to rid it of distractions such as the BU case.     

Familial patterns of learning disabilities

Extended families of 12 young adults (9 LD, 3 non-LD) were given a battery of tests and questionnaires, and 131 persons, ranging in age from 6 to 85, were classified as LD or non-LD on the basis of subtest scores 1 SD below the mean or less on subtests of the PIAT and WRAT achievement tests. Pedigree analysis indicated that LD was strongly familial, with the most probable mode involving a major gene effect, but the type of disability (reading/ math) was not directly inherited. Autoimmune disorders were significantly correlated (P<.005) with LD, especially in families in which LD remained a major handicap into adulthood, a trait that also varied between families. In two of the LD families, adults showed little evidence of the reading/spelling deficits they had shown when tested as children, while adults in other families failed to make gains in reading and spelling.     

Cognitive abilities and learning disabilities

Summary The greater discrepancy between spatial vs sequential/conceptual WISC subtest results in learning-disabled children is instrumental to the idea that these children might profit relatively more from an imagery based strategy in organizing and recalling noun pairs and triplets than from a verbal strategy. The results from the present studies with concrete nouns show that this is not the case. Another result is that learning-disabled children’s recall performance is also lower when strategy instructed (except in the first experiment) than normal children’s performance. Suggestions as to which strategy aspects could be responsible are given. This paper is based upon a presentation at the 30th Annual Conference of The Orton Society in Indianapolis, November 1979.