Science instruction at the secondary level: implications for students with learning disabilities

Designing appropriate content area instruction for secondary students with learning disabilities is a challenging endeavor. Even if these students are mainstreamed into algebra, history, or science classes, special educators are likely to expect only a minimal grasp of the material. To go beyond this, to teach higher order thinking through these subjects, would be regarded by most practitioners as too labor-intensive. The authors of this article argue that, through a comprehensive revision of traditional materials, secondary students with learning disabilities can learn content area subjects--earth science and introductory chemistry, particularly--in an integrated manner. These students can achieve a firm understanding of the subject, as well as learn how to solve complex, domain-specific problems. For this kind of integrated instruction to be feasible, the curriculum must be designed and field-tested by professional curriculum developers.     

Postsecondary education for students with learning disabilities

Increasingly, students with learning disabilities are attending community colleges and traditional 4-year colleges and universities. This article presents the results of a review of the literature on services available or recommended for students with learning disabilities. The results suggest that postsecondary institutions have begun to provide a wide array of services to these students. There is little empirical evidence, however, on the effectiveness of those services. An agenda for future research is also discussed.     

Small-group instruction for students with learning disabilities: observational and incidental learning.

This study evaluated the effectiveness and efficiency of constant time delay (a near errorless learning procedure) in a small-group instructional arrangement. Three fifth-grade students with learning disabilities were taught to recognize multisyllabic basal vocabulary words. A multiple-probe design across behaviors (word sets) was used to evaluate the procedure. Following instruction on each word set, students were assessed on their ability to recognize their own target words, recognize observational words, spell both target and observational words, and define both target and observational words. The results indicated that the constant time-delay procedure was reliably implemented and was effective in establishing criterion-level performance for all students with extremely low error percentages.     

Grade retention rates among students with learning disabilities.

This study investigated the grade retention of students with learning disabilities. Data were collected on 689 students referred and identified as having learning disabilities during the 1987-88 school year in Indiana. Of these students, 58% had been retained before identification. The results of this investigation suggest that retention is being used as a remediation before labeling a student. Implications of this practice and alternatives to grade retention as a method to address the academic needs of students are discussed.     

Memory for everyday information in students with learning disabilities

This study compared students with and without learning disabilities (LD) on their recall of academic information and information encountered in the students' everyday lives. The academic recall measures included a sentence listening span test, a rhyming words working memory test, and a visual matrix working memory task. Students' cued recall of all the tasks was also measured. The everyday working memory tasks included a dance episode event recall test; a library procedure recall test; and recall tests of commonly found objects, such as a coin, a telephone, and a McDonald's sign. Compared to students without LD, students with LD performed poorly on both the academic recall tasks and the everyday recall tasks. These results support the notion that some students with LD may have working memory problems that affect their performance on tasks other than reading. The results of the cued recall showed that the availability of cues significantly decreased the ability group differences on many of the academic and everyday tasks. This result replicates prior research findings that students with LD do not use retrieval strategies effectively and that some students with LD may have a production deficiency that affects their retrieval of previously encoded information.     

Reading comprehension strategy instruction and attribution retraining for secondary students with learning and other mild disabilities

A pre-post experimental design with 6-week delayed posttest was implemented to investigate the effects of reading comprehension strategy (RCS) instruction with and without attribution retraining (AR) on reading outcomes for seventh, eighth, and ninth graders with learning and other mild disabilities. Students were randomly assigned to one of three treatments: RCS+AR, RCS, or a Read Naturally (Ihnot, 1992) comparison condition. Results indicated that compared to the comparison group, both strategy instruction groups performed better on a summarization measure of comprehension after treatment producing large effect sizes. Both groups also performed better after a 6-week delay; however, only the RCS+AR group maintained a large effect size. In addition, RCS+AR students displayed higher attributions for reading success at post- and delayed posttesting. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Grade retention among students with learning disabilities

This study explored the rates of grade retention among children with undiagnosed learning disabilities. During the 1990–91 school year, data were collected on 344 Michigan students who were referred for special-education evaluation due to learning problems. Of the 201 students determined to possess a learning disability (LD), 71.6% had been retained at least once before they were referred for special-education evaluation. Minority and urban LD students were more apt to be retained before being referred for evaluation. Retained LD students were usually one year older than nonretained LD students at the time of special-education referral. Although retention among LD students did not appear to be related to gender or grade placement, retained LD students generally exhibited lower levels of intelligence and weaker skills in reading comprehension, writing, and math at the time of their referral. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Vocational education and students with learning disabilities

This inquiry focuses on the status of nearly 500 students with learning disabilities in 17 state-operated regional vocational-technical schools in a northeastern state. The inquiry addressed four primary concerns: patterns of assessment, career choice, school marks, and attendance. The data indicate that a variety of instruments were used in the assessment process and that the overall grade equivalent levels of attainment ranged between fifth- and seventh-grade levels. Children defined as learning disabled participated in a large number of vocational trade specialties and some 50% or more had school marks indicating that they were passing in these areas. Attendance was high. Many children with learning disabilities successfully perform in competitive vocational education programs designed to produce proficiency at the level of journey person.     

A review of social interventions for students with learning disabilities

Twenty-two studies are reviewed that report the effects of social skills training and intervention with 572 children identified as learning disabled between 5 and 19 years of age. These studies are reviewed to examine characteristics and components of intervention effectiveness. Age and sex of subjects, grade grouping, group size, intervention duration, intervention procedures, subject selection, and type of interventional model are examined to find patterns that reflect intervention success. Several intervention characteristics and components are associated with social intervention effectiveness: selecting subjects who had social skills difficulties or low peer acceptance, using cognitive-behavioral intervention procedures, providing individual or small group instruction, and applying long-term intervention and training. Discussion focuses on difficulties in comparing studies to determine intervention effectiveness through the examination of outcome measures, a call for revisions in future reporting of social interventions in the literature, and those intervention factors that relate to increases in peer acceptance.     

A survey of postsecondary programs for students with learning disabilities

Four-year colleges and universities identified as offering special programs for post-secondary students with learning disabilities were surveyed to determine the types of services provided. Results related to students served, assessment and referral procedures used, academic and nonacademic services offered, and procedures employed for staff training are discussed in this article.     

Outreach and support for Australian university students with learning disabilities

Abstract

Although students with learning disabilities (LD) are increasing in Australian universities (Smith, Carroll, & Elkins, 1999), limited data is available about this group and the services available to them. This paper reports the results of a 1996 survey of university outreach, transition and orientation programs to attract potential students with LD and assist them in adjusting to higher education study. The availability of generic and specialist support services and accommodations was also investigated.

Universities promote awareness of disability support services widely in outreach to prospective students and at application and/or enrolment, although students with LD are seldom specifically targeted. Formal programs to assist students from equity groups or students with disabilities to consider tertiary study are most frequently directed at high school students; only one quarter of the universities had outreach programs which might include adults with LD. Most universities offer a comprehensive range of support to students with LD through both generic and disability services. Approaches to the documentation of diagnostic assessment and the establishment of need for accommodation are however variable, and raise issues of equity which are of concern to disability support staff.     

Piagetian cognitive functioning in students with learning disabilities

This study investigated the cognitive abilities as measured by the Inventory of Piaget's Developmental Tasks (IPDT) (Furth, 1970) of male and female fourth and fifth graders with learning disabilities. In addition, their cognitive abilities were compared to their reading and mathematics achievement, as measured by the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) (Dunn & Markwardt, 1970). A two-way analysis of covariance revealed a significant mean difference in cognitive ability between students with learning disabilities and nondisabled students. No significant differences existed in performance between males and females. Multiple regression showed that a linear combination of reading and mathematics achievement yielded a significant positive correlation to cognitive ability.     

A capability approach for online primary and secondary students with disabilities

A capability approach was used to identify and synthesise research studies about online students with disabilities in primary and secondary school (aged five to 18 years) in an attempt to describe the experience from an empirical perspective. A capability approach is intended to maximise agency and can be used to describe the extent to which individuals are able to use limited resources to build a satisfying and enjoyable life. In this analysis, a derived capability set was used to narrow the larger body of research about primary and secondary students in online education in order to consider only studies that described ways in which students successfully used online education to maximise agency. The derived capability set was: autonomy, judgement, practical reason, affiliation, high school graduation and a desire to help others. A method for deriving the capability set and ways in which a capability approach fails to describe this experience are discussed.