Search

This article comments on contributions to this special issue of School Psychology Review that focus on using cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) to support decision making about implementation of evi...

A dearth of literature exists on first-year transfer student interventions, which makes it difficult to determine whether there are transfer student subgroups that struggle more than others...

Research with English monolinguals has identified key subskills of reading comprehension that can differentiate subgroups of readers. There remains a dearth of research examining these subs...

This longitudinal study used latent growth curve modeling to investigate English literacy development in a sample of Spanish-speaking language minority students from third through eighth grade. This study also compared the sample’s literacy development to the entire population of California students using state standardized test data. Second, this study examined the contributions of a variety of bilingual measures of kindergarten letter knowledge, phonological awareness, word reading, and vocabulary to literacy development. Results demonstrated the present sample scored below average in literacy compared to the overall population of California students across years, but made slight gains to narrow the achievement gap. The greatest gains were obtained between fourth and fifth grade, but plateaued thereafter. Results concerning the second research questions showed that the third grade literacy intercept was predicted by kindergarten English letter knowledge, Spanish onset, Spanish word reading, and English vocabulary. However, English literacy development through eighth grade was only predicted by kindergarten English and Spanish vocabulary. Findings support arguments for educational efforts to target oral language instruction for these students in early elementary and instruction in both languages may provide the greatest benefit. Instructional implications are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to determine what institutionally contrived experiences would engage community college students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) study, regardless of their major. During the 2013–2014 academic year, 373 students at two California community colleges were surveyed, and an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on the questions involving STEM experiences. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed on an additional survey sample of 343 students collected during the fall 2014 semester. A 4-factor model for the survey items pertaining to STEM experiences was confirmed through CFA. It suggested that the following latent constructs could be used to develop a program to increase STEM engagement: general support, career skills, academic support, and career guidance. Similarly, a bifactor model with a general latent construct of STEM experiences was another good fitting model. These findings suggest that the general factor (i.e., STEM ...

Contents: Preface. Part I: Disaggregating Special Education Populations. Introduction to Part I. D.P. Oswald, M.J. Coutinho, On Disaggregating Disability, Whatever That Means. A.G. Boardman, S. Vaughn, Response to Intervention as a Framework for the Prevention and Identification of Learning Disabilities: Which Comes First, Identification or Intervention? H.M. Walker, J.R. Sprague, Early, Evidence-Based Intervention With School-Related Behavior Disorders: Key Issues, Continuing Challenges, and Promising Practices. T. Lewis, J. Wehby, Heeding the Call to Radically Reform Special Education for Students With Emotional/Behavioral Disorders Through Science. Part II: Repairing and Elaborating Special Education's Conceptual Foundations. Introduction to Part II. M.P. Mostert, James Milton Kauffman: A Legacy of Special Education's Unheralded Historical Distinctives. B. Bateman, Law and the Conceptual Foundations of Special Education Practice. N. Zigmond, Delivering Special Education Is a Two-Person Job: A Call for Unconventional Thinking. G.M. Sasso, Science and Reason in Special Education: The Legacy of Derrida and Foucault. Part III: Strengthening Special Education's Empirical Base. Introduction to Part III. S.R. Forness, K.Y. Beard, Strengthening the Research Base in Special Education: Evidence-Based Practice and Interdisciplinary Collaboration. B.G. Cook, M. Tankersley, A Preliminary Examination to Identify the Presence of Quality Indicators in Experimental and Single-Subject Research in Special Education. K.L. Lane, S.M. Barton-Arwood, L.A. Rogers, E.J. Robertson, Literacy Interventions for Students With and At-Risk for Emotional or Behavioral Disorders: 1997 to Present. Part IV: Kauffman's Contributions to Special Education. J.W. Lloyd, D.P. Hallahan, Advocacy and Reform of Special Education.

The purpose of this study was to examine effectiveness of paraphrasing interventions on mathematics word problem-solving accuracy in third grade children (N = 72) at risk for mathematics disabilities (MD). Three instructional conditions directed students’ attention through paraphrasing, via writing, to different propositions within word problems. Students were randomly assigned to one of four intervention conditions: paraphrase question propositions (restate), paraphrase relevant propositions (relevant) and paraphrase all propositions (complete) or an untreated control. A mixed ANCOVA indicated that paraphrasing relevant and complete propositions significantly increased posttest accuracy when compared to the control and restate condition. Results from the study provide support for the effectiveness of paraphrasing interventions that directs students to restate/paraphrase propositions of mathematics word problems relative to the control condition.

This study investigates the relation between Spanish and English early literacy skills in kindergarten and first grade, and English oral reading fluency at the end of first and second grade in a sample of 150 Spanish-speaking English language learners. Students were assessed in kindergarten, first, and second grades on a broad bilingual academic battery that included phonological awareness, letter knowledge, vocabulary, word reading, and oral reading fluency. These measures were analyzed using hierarchal multiple regression to determine which early reading skills predicted English oral reading fluency scores at the end of first and second grade. Predictive relationships were different between English and Spanish measures of early literacy and end of year first grade and second grade English oral reading fluency. This study has important implications for early identification of risk for Spanish-speaking English language learners as it addresses the input of both Spanish and English early reading skills and the relation between those skills and English oral reading fluency.

Early identification and intervention for children with disabilities can significantly improve longer term outcomes, but in developing nations like many in the Pacific Rim, such programs and practices can be expensive and must compete against other needs. We argue that early identification and intervention by schools leads not only to life improvements for children with disabilities and their families but also to substantial additions to a nation's human capital. Therefore, national investment in special education and prevention systems that provide the earliest possible identification and effective interventions can not only offset the lifetime family and social costs of disabilities, but also can add importantly to general well-being. Moreover, new knowledge and technologies relevant to applied problems in early identification are rapidly emerging, potentially increasing the precision and lowering the costs involved. The bottleneck, however, is the inadequate supply of highly skilled professionals in the special and general education systems – from university doctoral training down to typical classroom teaching. Based on extant literature, we articulate some development principles to help developing education systems in choosing how they may best invest in early identification and intervention.

Using extant data, the purpose of this study is to examine methods for determining response to intervention (RTI) in a sample of kindergarten English Learners (ELs). Three commonly used methods for determining RTI—(a) benchmark criteria, (b) slope discrepancy, and (c) dual discrepancy—are investigated. Participants included 117 ELs. Students were administered pretests and then provided intervention in phonological awareness and phonics in small groups. Progress was monitored weekly on two Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills measures, Phoneme Segmentation Fluency and Nonsense Word Fluency. Results indicate that there is very little overlap across the three methods and across the two measures in determining response and nonresponse for kindergarten ELs. The results of the study have implications for continued research regarding response of ELs as well as practical implications regarding which methods and measures should be used to determine response.

In this study, we explored whether the contribution of working memory (WM) to children's (N = 471) 2nd language (L2) reading and language acquisition was best accounted for by processing efficiency at a phonological level and/or by executive processes independent of phonological processing. Elementary school children (Grades 1, 2, & 3) whose 1st language (L1) was Spanish were administered a battery of cognitive (short-term memory [STM], working memory [WM], rapid naming, and random letter and number generation), vocabulary, and reading measures in both Spanish and English. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that in addition to phonological processing, naming speed, and inattention, both WM and STM contributed significant variance to L2 reading and language acquisition. Regression modeling showed no significant cross-language effects when L1 measures were entered into the analysis. The results showed that both STM and WM contributed unique variance to L2 reading and language acquisition beyond the contribution of L1 phonological processing skills.

There is increasing demand for access to effective interventions for families who have children with autism. Self-directed learning models have been successfully used with other populations as a way to reduce the service-need discrepancy. The purpose of this study was to evaluate, through a randomized clinical trial, whether the use of a self-directed learning program could result in changes in behavior for parents and their children with autism. Results indicated significant differences between treatment and control groups at posttest on all of the dependent measures. Furthermore, all of the parents who completed the self-directed learning program reported high ratings of satisfaction. The data suggest the efficacy and effectiveness of a self-directed learning program to serve as an initial step toward providing intervention for parents with children with autism.

This study investigated the effects of three instructional conditions on precursors to successful reading for Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELL). The study was conducted using a randomized, alternate treatment control group design specifically targeting phonological awareness (PA) listening comprehension (LC), and decoding in a sample of ELL (N= 82) including students who were and were not at risk for later reading failure. Two randomly assigned experimental intervention groups and one treatment control group were created to test the effectiveness of three instructional interventions that differed in the relative amount of time used for instructing the word- and text-level targeted skills. Specifically, the two experimental intervention groups received different doses of LC relative to PA instruction, creating a LC Concentration group and a PA Concentration group. The treatment control group received only PA and alphabet knowledge instruction (word-level skills). Results indicated that both at-risk and not-at-risk ELLs in the LC Concentration group outperformed students in the other groups on almost all measures, including PA skills, despite minimal amounts of instructional time-targeting word-level skills. These data extend the existing literature by lending empirical support to the use of a LC component in early reading interventions for young ELL.

This article reports the results of a preliminary study that applied a randomized posttest-only design to evaluate the effectiveness of a literacy curriculum that incorporated explicit opportunitie...

Storybook reading research with monolingual families suggests that adult strategies used during shared reading provide greater opportunities for children's verbal participation while facilitating their language and literacy skills. Research of this type with linguistic minority children is relatively uncommon. In the present study, 16 primarily Spanish-speaking Latina/o caregivers and their 7- to 8- year-old children participated in a home-based reading intervention in the families' primary language. Parents were taught shared reading strategies based on Whitehurst and colleagues' (1988) Dialogic Reading. Results show increases in parents' strategy use and overall verbal participation. Further, measures of children's productive language and relative participation increased significantly. This pilot study has implications for further research and intervention utilizing shared storybook reading within linguistic minority populations.

The purpose of this study was to provide an in-depth investigation of the four lowest performing students in one kindergarten classroom. The students were provided with 10 weeks of explicit, intensive intervention in phonological awareness skills. Three types of data were collected during the intervention: fluency measures; strategy use to perform phonological awareness tasks; and students' number of responses during instruction. The combination of these data allowed both qualitative and quantitative examination of the characteristics of low-performing students. Low-performing students who were responsive to the intensive instruction differed on each of the aforementioned variables from students who were not responsive.

This study investigated growth in reading, vocabulary, and memory in children (ages 5 to 10) learning English as a second language identified at risk for reading disabilities (RD). A growth curve analysis showed that RD children were significantly below children not at risk in English and Spanish reading, Spanish short-term memory (STM), Spanish comprehension, and English and Spanish working memory (WM). RD children were also inferior on growth measures of English and Spanish WM and Spanish STM. Growth on measures of Spanish vocabulary, reading, STM, and WM accounted for 12% of the variance in predicting growth in English reading. However, only Spanish measures of WM growth contributed unique variance. The results show that growth in WM in the primary language predicts growth in second-language reading.

This study investigated three questions: Do phonological processes show cross-linguistic transfer? How does the language of instruction influence the relationship between phonological processes and decoding? Does performance on Spanish and English phonological processing tasks similarly predict English decoding for the same English learners (ELs)? We studied first-grade ELs who had been enrolled for 2 years in two programs that differed by language of instruction (English only and bilingual). Phonological processing skills were examined following a theory of core phonological processing deficits that postulates that three related constructs—phonological awareness, phonological coding, and phonological recoding—are the major components of phonological processing. The results indicate that (a) phonological processes do exhibit cross-linguistic transfer in young ELs; (b) phonological awareness might best be conceptualized as comprising two developmentally overlapping components; (c) language of instruction influences English and Spanish word reading and Spanish pseudoword decoding, but not English pseudoword decoding; and (d) phonological awareness is the only theoretical phonological processing construct significantly related to all English and Spanish reading tasks.

In this article we discuss two impediments to widespread adoption and implementation of cognitive-behavioral intervention (CBI) procedures by teachers of students with behavior disorders. First, its principles can be difficult, even for researchers and other specialists. Second, despite ample demonstration that teachers can be taught CBI techniques, implementation at significant scale is impeded by historical resistance to the use of behavioral techniques, even after 30 years of research meant to place behavior management in schools on a scientific basis. We conclude with comments on the likelihood of wider use of CBI and offer recommendations for a research implementation agenda that focuses on generalization of appropriate use of CBI across teachers and schools.

This study determined the degree to which the phonological and executive components of memory reflect language-specific capacities in reading achievement. We tested whether the memory processes in a sample of English-language learners that played a major role in predicting second-language acquisition and risk for reading disability (RD) in Grade 1 (Swanson, Saez, Gerber, & Leafstedt, 2004) also predicted reading performance in Grade 2. The present results showed that Spanish short-term memory (STM) performance in Grade 1 predicted basic Spanish-reading skills and Spanish comprehension in Grade 2, whereas Grade 1 English STM performance predicted English vocabulary and English comprehension in Grade 2. More importantly, children at risk for RD in Grade 1 differed from the counterparts in Grade 2 on both English and Spanish measures of reading, whereas their memory deficits were isolated to Spanish STM and working memory (WM). The relationship between language-specific processes in memory and reading are discussed.

In this article we report small, but statistically significant, effects of brief supplemental instruction on English reading by Spanish-speaking kindergartners (N = 37) who performed poorly on a bilingual battery of phonological-processing tasks. Intervention design was compatible with the Reading First initiative and with research on use of multitiered intervention strategies for preventing reading failure among young monolingual students (e.g., L. S. Fuchs & Vaughn, 2003). We describe a Core Intervention Model (CIM) comprised of specific instructional behaviors that teachers might easily learn and employ regardless of curriculum, and discuss implications of our findings for building multitiered preventative instruction for young English learners.

This article examines the effects of intensive phonological-awareness (PA) instruction for kindergarten English learners. One intact kindergarten class was provided 300 minutes of intensive instruction in PA. Results indicate that students who received intervention made significant growth in word reading when compared to a cohort of kindergarten students who received general kindergarten instruction. The article also discusses ability-group differences in performance among high-, middle-, and low-performing students and the implications of these findings for instructional practice.

The authors determined whether the cognitive processes that underlie second-language acquisition difficulties are the same as those that underlie reading difficulties. First-grade (N = 101) bilingual and nonbilingual children were administered a battery of measures in Spanish and English. English word identification and vocabulary were predicted by a language-general working-memory (WM) factor, whereas English pseudoword reading was predicted by Spanish pseudoword reading and WM. The results also showed that (a) children proficient in language were better able to access resources from WM and (b) children with reading disabilities (RD) performed poorly on Spanish measures of short-term memory. In general, second-language difficulties are related to accessing a language-independent WM system, whereas language-specific phonological memory deficits underlie RD.

In this article, I argue that creation of learning disability (LD) has served scientific, if not always policy, purposes. Debate over classification of natural variation is normal. Consensus on the mere existence of LD unleashed a beneficial search for better understanding of individual differences. Forty years of research may not have resolved all important problems, but it has produced inventive, creative tools that benefit both investigation and intervention and has discredited earlier beliefs about LD. Possibly, we are now on the threshold of understanding the complexity of LD development, natural history, and expression in schools.

Attitudes of 49 principals and 64 special education teachers regarding the inclusion of students with mild disabilities were investigated. Results of a discriminant analysis indicated that principals and special educators were separated into groups with 76% accuracy according to their responses to items drawn from the Regular Education Initiative Teacher Survey (Semmel, Abernathy, Butera, & Lesar, 1991). items measuring attitudes toward the efficacy of included placements with consultative services, the academic outcomes associated with included placements, and the protection of resources devoted to students with mild disabilities correlated most highly with the discriminant function. Findings are discussed in relation to their implications for the implementation of inclusion reforms and the educational opportunities of students with mild disabilities.

This article describes and discusses Project CASELINK, an OSEP-funded three-year project that uses a problem-based learning (PBL) perspective to frame design and development of eight interactive multimedia modules on the Internet to augment new and existing introductory courses in special education anywhere in the nation. The project responds to critical questions about the distinction between craft knowledge that develops from practical experience and academic knowledge acquired through formal study. CASELINK attempts to bridge the gap between these ways of knowing so that all relevant professional knowledge can be identified and applied to improving outcomes for students with disabilities. We describe how and why interactive, multimedia, and distance learning technologies are used by CASELINK in support of the larger purposes of problem-based learning.

Historically, special education research has focused on placement and service-delivery options rather than on the broader school environment. In this study, we examined special education as an effort by schools to organize education for students with mild disabilities. To investigate which variations in how schools organize instruction account for their relative effectiveness, we selected 6 schools representing a range of effectiveness based on measures of academic performance, self-esteem, and school adjustment of students with mild disabilities. We then established overall school environment ratings based on data from observations and student and teacher interviews. The findings indicated that no single feature, structure, or organization of school environment consistently indicated a school's relative standing or its relative effectiveness based on student performance. This article describes how the case study schools were organized to educate students with mild disabilities, what kind of educational e...

This research examined the relation of school-level changes in the reading performance of students in general and in special education to school environmental variables associated with effective schools reforms in 56 Southern California schools. Applying a joint production model of outcomes, we predicted that school-level general and special education performance change related inversely to one another and differentially to effective environ- mental characteristics. Results showed inverse relations between changes in general and special education students' performance in sample schools. Inconsistent and differential relations between environmental characteristics associated with effective schools and the performance changes of the two groups of students were also evidenced. The implications of these findings for the educational opportunities of students with mild disabilities in the context of contemporary general and special education reforms are discussed.

Ever since the Diana v. California State Board of Education decision in 1970, American special educators have been wary of misidentifying as disabled students who are learning English as their second language. Nevertheless, according to the 24th Annual Report to Congress on IDEA (Office of Special Education Programs, 2002), although they account for about 12–13 percent of the population, more than 17 percent of students identified as learning disabled are Hispanic. By comparison, white students, who comprise 75 percent of the population, account for only 61 percent of students identified as having a learning disability. The Civil Rights Project at Harvard also has produced data to suggest that ethnic minorities still tend to be both overrepresented in some categories of disability and underrepresented in others (Losen & Orfield, 2002). Unfortunately, ethnic identification doesn’t reveal the degree to which these or other students are proficient in English. Despite the apparent disproportionality in the percentage of Hispanic students identified as learning disabled, for example, it may also be the case that students who are not proficient in English are underidentified if schools incorrectly attribute early learning difficulties to second-language learning or economic status. The truth regarding the incidence of learning disabilities, particularly reading disabilities, among English learners (ELs) remains obscure. In its 2002 report, Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education, the National Research Council noted that what research exists on ELs has been mainly directed toward debate over language of instruction while “rigorous research on instructional interventions for English language learners has

Students’ oral reading fluency growth from first through fourth grade was used to predict their achievement on the Stanford Achievement Test (9th ed.; SAT-9 Reading) using a latent growth model. Two conditional variables related to student status were used to determine the effects on reading performance - English language learners (ELLs) with low socioeconomic status and low socioeconomic (SES) status alone. Results revealed that both types of student status variables reliably predicted low performance on initial first grade oral reading fluency, which later predicted fourth grade performance on the SAT-9. However, the reading fluency trajectories of the ELLs and monolingual English students were not significantly different. In addition, when both student status variables and letter naming fluency were used to predict initial oral reading fluency, letter naming fluency dominated the prediction equation, suggesting that an initial pre-reading skill, letter naming fluency, better explained fourth grade performance on the SAT-9 than either ELL with low SES or low SES alone. The discussion focuses on how to better enable these readers and how oral reading fluency progress monitoring can be used to assist school personnel in determining which students need additional instructional assistance. Los resultados revelaron que ambos tipos de variables sobre la condición del estudiante predecían de manera fiable un bajo desempeño en su fluidez lectora oral en 1o, que después predeciría el desempeño del 4o curso en el SAT-9. Sin embargo, las trayectorias de fluidez de lectura de los estudiantes ELL y de los estudiantes monolingües ingleses no presentaban diferencias significativas. Asimismo, cuando se utilizaron las dos variables sobre la situación del estudiante y la fluidez nombrando letras para predecir la fluidez lectora oral inicial, la fluidez a la hora de nombrar letras dominaba la ecuación de predicción, lo que indicaba que una habilidad inicial de prelectura como es la fluidez a la hora de nombrar las letras explicaba mejor el rendimiento de 4o curso en el SAT-9 que el hecho de ser estudiantes de legua inglesa con bajo estatus socio económico o el bajo estatus socioeconómico por sí sólo. El estudio se centra en cómo capacitar mejor a estos lectores y ver cómo se puede utilizar el seguimiento de su progreso en la lectura oral para ayudar al equipo escolar a determinar qué estudiantes necesitan recibir ayuda adicional en su formación.

This study examined the relationships of family functioning, parenting stress, and social support of caregivers who are parenting children with HIV infection. A family adaptational model integrated the concepts of stress, coping, and ecological systems for understanding the impact of an HIV-infected child on family adaptation and functioning. Data were collected from 48 caregivers of HIV-exposed children. Hierarchical multiple-regression analysis showed that a number of factors contributed significantly to the prediction of parenting stress and family functioning. Results showed significant relationships among parenting stress, children's developmental delay status, children and caregivers' HIV status, and caregiving burden.

Zigmond and Baker's (this issue) case studies of students with learning disabilities, teachers, and instructional arrangements in five select schools engaged in inclusive practices (e.g., collaborative instruction) raise alarming questions about the educational program of students with learning disabilities and the future of special education. The case studies are discussed in the context of a theory of tolerance as a function of enduring cognitive, affective, and economic constraints on instructional practice. Despite differences in approach, the effect of implementing “inclusion” in each of these schools was to diminish and subordinate the role of the special education teacher, reduce the potential effectiveness of special education as a program of specialized instructional cffort, and remove the academic press for achievement by students with learning disabilities.

As a basis for policy, constructivism has an ideological character that draws from but is not identical to Piagetian or Vygotskian notions of constructed knowledge. Special educators should be wary of borrowing fashionable rhetoric of postmodernism to justify development or reform of instruction and curriculum unless accompanying constructs and values can first be disentangled. In reflecting on the articles in this special issue, I indicate that there are higher stakes for special education, particularly in national curriculum and testing reform, that accompany constructivism as a rationale or framework for development of instructional curricular strategies for students with disabilities.

The effects of four types of prompting conditions on the narrative productions of seventh- and eighth-grade students with learning disabilities (LD) and without learning disabilities (NLD) were investigated. Participants were asked to write four stories for which a beginning, middle, end, or no prompt was given in a randomly assigned order. Results indicated differences between LD and NLD groups in both quantity and quality of story production across prompts. A significant group-by-prompt interaction supported the experimental hypothesis. The difference between the quality of LD and NLD stories was significantly greater following the middle-prompt condition; that is, the LD group scored significantly lower when offered the middle prompt than under the other prompting conditions. The results are interpreted as supporting the theoretical position that students with LD reveal relatively greater propensity for linear-sequential processing. Hence, the quality of their writing performance on tasks requiring recursive processing is lower than that of NLD students.

The impact of Dunn's article was enhanced by the prevailing sentiment of the 1960s in favor of the environmental position and the press for civil rights. The adoption of resource specialist services in place of special day classes that was noted in the 1970s had profound curricular implications, which are examined. The dramatic changes in the number of EMR students and the behavioral characteristics of those currently identified render many of Dunn's assertions invalid for the current situation. The current role of advocacy in policy formulation is discussed as an unfortunate legacy of Dunn's influential paper.

Twenty-five years after Dunn (1968) questioned the efficacy of special classes, some are questioning Special Education itself. Dunn's polemical reaction to civil rights concerns was already permeating school reform in the 1960s. His legacy was an ideological cleavage between special education and advocates for minorities. General education created segregationist tendencies for economic reasons. Hence, contemporary rhetoric about “full inclusion” may fail. Couching special education in constitutional terms resulted in gradual substitution of procedural compliance for instructional innovation. Dunn ignored the importance of school context. The present authors focus on Tolerance Theory and analysis of the effects of school environments.

This study examined effects of two types of instruction on the word-problem solving performance of postsecondary students with learning disabilities. We used an analysis of error patterns to determine the effects of explicit instructions when word-problem language did not directly correspond (i.e., was inconsistent) with required arithmetic operations. Thirty-eight students randomly participated in either a translation training group, a diagram training group, or an attention-control group. Analyses of variance revealed that the diagram group outperformed both the attention-control and the translation group. We interpret these findings as showing the importance of procedural as well as declarative forms of math word-problem solving knowledge.

Editor's Comment: In the last issue of RASE (11:3, March/April 1990), we explored the Regular Education Initiative from the perspectives of several prominent general educators. These perspectives were written by Russell Gersten and John Woodward, Lvnne Miller, Dolores Ditrkin, Allan Glatthorn, Beverly Showers, Robert Slewin, and Susan Loncks-Horsley and Deborah Roody. These were followed by two commentaries-by Edward Kameenui and Anne McGill-Franzen and Richard Allington. Following are three more commentaries on those papers, by Melvyn Semmel and Michael Gerber, Robert Slaiin, and Allan Glattborn.-LI

The performance of 38 male third- and fourth-grade reading disabled/poor decoders and above-average readers/good decoders was compared on a series of six measures of phonological awareness, including tasks that required the ability to segment, blend, and manipulate phonemes. Performance on these tasks was also correlated with phonetic decoding of pseudo words. Significant but varying intercorrelations were obtained among tasks in both groups. For the poor decoders, deletion was the most highly correlated with the other tasks. However, all good decoders performed at ceiling level on this task. For the poor decoders, deletion was significantly correlated with phonetic decoding (r=.74 and r =. 78 for timed and untimed decoding measures, respectively). While all good decoders had good phonological awareness, not all those with good phonological awareness were good decoders. The results suggest that tasks that require blending and manipulation of phonemes, in addition to segmentation, may predict decoding ability best.

This study investigates the effects on learning‐disabled students of embedding a drill and practice task within an arcade game‐like context. We identified 30 learning‐disabled and 30 nondisabled students who had conceptual understanding of addition but had not achieved automaticity in addition facts. We trained students on either a drill‐and‐practice game or an unadorned, straightforward drill (i.e., “plain vanilla") program. We assessed automaticity in three modes of responding—oral, computer keyboard, and written response. There was a significant interaction effect indicating that the learning‐disabled students were relatively disadvantaged by repeated practice in the game format. We infer learning‐disabled students' lower performance is attributed to attentional difficulties, particularly selective attention problems, when potentially distracting elements of a game environment are present.

The purpose of this study was to assess the roles of oral language and phonological awareness on reading performance in grade 3 bilingual students. Several hierarchical models assessed the best predictors of third grade English and Spanish word attack, word identification and reading comprehension. Predictor variables were measures of phonological awareness, expressive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary, and syntax in both English and Spanish. The results showed that within language contributions of expressive vocabulary and syntax best predicted literacy when compared to phonological awareness measures.

In this paper I comment on recent recommendations that students' responsiveness to instruction (RTI) provides a basis for identification of students as learning disabled. I repeat an earlier argument (Gerber & Semmel, 1985) that teachers embedded in schools are naturally variable in their capacity to respond to differences in students' response to instruction. This fact continues to be the only logical empirical foundation for the construct of learning disability. I describe a theoretical model of instructional tolerance that indicates why standardized protocol RTI strategies, specifically, cannot be achieved at desirable scale without incurring enormous costs.

Individuals with learning disabilities (LD), the largest group of people with disabilities in the United States, are attending college in greater numbers than ever before. Post-secondary training is critical for individuals with LD to make successful transitions into a changing and ever more demanding world of work. Research indicating that college faculty are willing to provide requested accommodations to students with LD suggests that they are increasingly likely to experience successful post-secondary outcomes, and therefore improve their vocational prospects. However, college students with LD and the accommodations they receive have recently garnered some highly critical press. These portrayals may portend problems in higher education for students with LD, who must self-identify and make specific accommodation requests to faculty in order to receive the instruction and testing environments that they require to succeed. Efforts to ensure that the LD label is not ubiquitously applied and that college faculty attempt to separate the idea of merit from achievement and implement instructional practices to better meet the educational needs of students with and without LD are recommended.