Underserved and Unprepared: Postsecondary Learning Disabilities

The adolescent and adult population with learning disabilities (LD) continues to be underserved and underprepared to meet the demands of postsecondary education. Evidence pertaining to postsecondary education outcomes for the population with LD is extremely bleak. One purpose of this article is to situate thinking about adolescents and adults with LD across the spectrum of ability and socioeconomic status within the current world context. The second objective is to heighten awareness of the changing needs of this population based on social, educational, economic, and political directives. Several academic options are presented as alternative pathways available to individuals in the transition from secondary to postsecondary environments.     

Who are Most,Average, or High‐Functioning Adults?

The growing number of high‐functioning adults seeking accommodations from testing agencies and postsecondary institutions presents an urgent need to ensure reliable and valid diagnostic decision making. The potential for this population to make significant contributions to society will be greater if we provide the learning and testing accommodations to allow them access to knowledge, as well as the means to demonstrate their extraordinary abilities. The criteria and decision making used to identify high‐functioning adults with learning disabilities (LD) must be robust yet flexible enough to account for individual differences, measurement fallibility, and examiner expertise. The purpose of this article is to explore legal, measurement, and clinical issues surrounding the provision of accommodations to high‐functioning individuals with LD.     

Communication Disorders and Challenging Behaviors: Supporting Children’s Functional Communication Goals in the Classroom

Children with communication disorders may express frustrations through challenging behaviors such as aggressive behaviors and social withdrawal. Challenging behaviors may lead to difficulties with building social competencies including emotional regulation and peer engagement. Individualized planning of functional goals for children with communication disorders provides support for social communication to increase quality classroom interactions. Teachers, families and service providers can work together to assess the purpose of the child’s behaviors in order to create more functional ways for the child to communicate as the spoken language continues to improve. This article focuses on strategies including considerations for collaboration in initial planning, communication modifications, and peer supports.     

Presence and Persistence: Poverty Ideology and Inner-city Teaching

This paper examines the role of poverty ideology in determining whether a teacher comes to teach at a poor school (presence) and whether s/he remains at this type of school over time (persistence). A sample of 400 teachers in San Diego California was administered a questionnaire that evaluated respondents’ attitudes toward poverty. Teachers who believed poverty was rooted in social structure were more apt to be present in and to persist at poor schools. It is argued that this presence and persistence in poor schools was because these teachers had developed a “structurally mitigated sense of occupational competence”. This sense of competence made these teachers more likely to understand the problems they encountered in the classroom in structural terms, and thus they were more likely to be both satisfied with and persist at their jobs.     

Euclidean Geometry in Two Medieval Islamic Encyclopaedias

Two early encyclopaedic treatises, written in Arabic, include extensive discussion of geometry. Although both the Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Safā' and the Kitāb al-Shifā' fall within the Euclidean tradition, their style and content differ radically. The Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic Ikhwān al-Safā' place mathematics at the head of their encyclopaedia, but develop their discussion of geometry using a "sub-Euclidean" approach. Ibn Sīnā, whose orientation is broadly Aristotelian, includes an epitome of Euclid's Elements in its entirety, yet modifies the text at numerous points.     

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.     

A test of theoretical models that account for information processing demands

This study tested four theoretical models in terms of their fit with demands placed on our cognitive system by traditional tests of cognitive ability. We did so by administering seven tests of cognitive ability known to require varying types of processing demands to a large group of college undergraduates (N = 193). We compared the models using confirmatory factor analyses, including those based upon a unitary factor, speed and capacity, crystallized and fluid intelligence, and verbal and spatial ability. The crystallized/fluid model provided the best fit with the data. This finding is consistent with previous research. Implications for education and future research are discussed.