Mobilising Mother Cabrini’s educational practice: the transnational context of the London school of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus 1898–1911

A schoolteacher from Lombardy, Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850–1917), founded the Institute of Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (MSC) in 1880. It was one of the 185 female religious institutes established in Italy in the nineteenth century. In the newly unified Italy, Cabrini found opportunities to formulate progressive Catholic educational practice, to establish an independent female congregation and to mobilise her educational practice to the United States to serve Italian migrants. She established a school in London in 1902. Cabrini’s letters and convent annals are used to trace the use of transnational networks in founding the school and to consider the impact of the transnational context on the school start-up. The concept of mobilising educational practice embraces both the geographical movement of people, goods and money and the formation of teaching sisters. By her death Cabrini had established 59 schools and orphanages in Europe and the Americas.     

Learning Disability Identification Criteria and Reporting in Empirical Research: A Review of 2001–2013

This review documents the learning disabilities (LD) identification criteria and procedures utilized in empirical research including students with LD published from 2001 to 2013 in three journals dedicated to the study of LD. Results reveal several troublesome findings related to transparency in reporting and the coherence of the LD construct. Nearly one‐third of all empirical studies investigating LD did not describe who identified the participants as having LD or how they were identified. Information on the specific area of LD was similarly lacking. Across studies, identification criteria varied widely. Moving forward, we contend that greater transparency and consistency with regard to the definition and operationalization of the construct of LD in empirical research is necessary if solidification of the scientific construct of LD is to be achieved.     

The Time-Bound Nature of Norms: Understandings and Misunderstandings

Presenting a view from CTB/McGraw-Hill, the author discusses the time-bound nature of test norms and argues that the phenomenon of most elementary students' scoring above averages from previous years' norms is a result of generally increasing levels of achievement.     

Cluster analysis of children and adolescents with brain damage and learning disabilities using neuropsychological, psychoeducational, and sociobehavioral variables.

The purpose of the study was to employ psychoeducational, neuropsychological, and sociobehavioral (Conners Rating Scale) variables in determining if definable subtypes exist within a diverse population of subjects with learning disabilities (LD) and documented brain damage. The sample of 95 subjects (27% female and 73% male) had been referred for neuropsychological assessment at a large, Midwestern medical center. Mean age was 10.6 years. Brain damage (BD) was documented for 45% of the sample. The first cluster analysis employed neuropsychological, psychoeducational, and sociobehavioral data and revealed four interpretable clusters. A second cluster analysis excluded sociobehavioral data and yielded two interpretable clusters. In neither analysis did a cluster consist exclusively of BD or LD subjects. Results were interpreted as supporting the importance of the sociobehavioral component in LD subtyping, as well as supporting the contention that parallels may exist in cerebral function and/or structure between the LD and BD classifications.     

Helping Teachers Formulate Sound Test Accommodation Decisions for Students with Learning Disabilities

This paper introduces a data-based approach as an alternative way to help teachers formulate decisions about the validity of test accommodations for students with LD. Three rationales for the approach are provided: (a) an inadequate research base to guide decision-making; (b) the heterogeneity of the LD population; and (c) problems with teachers' use of subjective judgment. Well-controlled studies on test accommodations are too scarce to draw firm conclusions about effects for the group of students labeled learning disabled (LD). Moreover, in light of the heterogeneity of learning disabilities, the individual, rather than the LD label, may be the more appropriate unit for deciding which test accommodations preserve the validity of test scores for students with LD. In this paper, we provide a rationale for a data-based approach to help teachers formulate decisions about the validity of test accommodations for individual students with LD. Then we describe an objective assessment process teachers may use in determining valid test accommodations. We conclude with recommendations for practitioners.