Legal and definitional issues affecting the identification and education of adults with specific learning disabilities in adult education programs

Although the exact prevalence is not determined, a noticeable subset of individuals who enroll in adult education and training programs have either diagnosed or undiagnosed specific learning disabilities (SLD). Understanding SLD is important basic information for adult educators to inform program policies as well as determine effective instructional practices. This article discusses the development of definitions of SLD and current agreement on the nature of SLD relevant to working with adults. It concludes with implications for adult education programs.     

Bangqiu: MLB's Role in Baseball's Comeback in the People's Republic of China

This article explores the growth of Chinese baseball since the early 1970s. The sport was very popular in the 1940s and 1950s as the semi-official pastime of the People's Liberation Army, but it disappeared from the country in the 1960s due to economic woes stemming from the Great Leap Forward and the anti-western fervour of the Cultural Revolution. Richard Nixon's historic meeting with Chairman Mao in 1972 ushered in a thaw in Sino–American relations that enabled veterans of 1950s competitions to take up baseball once again and teach the game to a new generation. Over the 1970s, baseball began to slowly grow in China with some modest Japanese encouragement and China began competing internationally the following decade. Over the past decade, Major League Baseball has made such a large investment in China that baseball has become the fastest growing sport in the country. At present, the country's only professional league is currently in the early stages of its development, but American talent evaluators believe that the skill of Chinese players is steadily improving and that it is not impossible to foresee a day when China produces baseball's Yao Ming from a massive pool of millions of internationally competitive athletes.     

Working With Gifted College and University Students: Journals,Organizations, and Scholarships

Resources for honors and honors college students support the needs of college or university faculty and others working with the gifted and honors population. With this critical selection of resources, faculty can locate literature in the field and librarians can effectively build collections that accommodate this higher education community.     

Indigenous technology of Sierra Leone and the science education of girls

Female school enrolment in Sierra Leone is consistently and significantly lower than that of boys at all levels of the educational system. Certain traditional beliefs, values and practices discriminate against the education of girls. There is an urgent need to adapt the science curriculum to the needs of girls, by including aspects they can relate to and identify with. Using indigenous technology as a basis for science education is a good way to begin. The use of familiar materials and processes will remove the fear often associated with science, thereby encouraging more female participation.     

Reading fluency: implications for the assessment of children with reading disabilities

The current investigation explored the diagnostic utility of reading fluency measures in the identification of children with reading disabilities. Participants were 50 children referred to a university-based clinic because of suspected reading problems and/or a prior diagnosis of dyslexia, where children completed a battery of standardized intellectual, reading achievement, and processing measures. Within this clinical sample, a group of children were identified that exhibited specific deficits in their reading fluency skills with concurrent deficits in rapid naming speed and reading comprehension. This group of children would not have been identified as having a reading disability according to assessment of single word reading skills alone, suggesting that it is essential to assess reading fluency in addition to word reading because failure to do so may result in the under-identification of children with reading disabilities.