Specific Learning Disabilities

Author(s):  
George Uduigwome

This chapter discusses best practices in providing supports for students diagnosed with reading (dyslexia), writing (dysgraphia), and spelling (dysorthographia) deficits. It examines some impacts of these and associated conditions on learning. The recommended strategies for leveraging learning for the identified population are all evidence-based. Per the author, early intervention is key to providing students with learning disabilities a meaningful learning experience. An early intervention involves the use of multiple measures to diagnose a student's present level of performance primarily with a view to finding strengths (Strengths can be used to mitigate deficits) and learning gaps, utilizing evidence-based systematic instruction delivered with treatment fidelity, and an ongoing progress monitoring.

Author(s):  
George Uduigwome

This chapter discusses best practices in providing supports for students diagnosed with reading (dyslexia), writing (dysgraphia), and spelling (dysorthographia) deficits. It examines some impacts of these and associated conditions on learning. The recommended strategies for leveraging learning for the identified population are all evidence-based. Per the author, early intervention is key to providing students with learning disabilities a meaningful learning experience. An early intervention involves the use of multiple measures to diagnose a student's present level of performance primarily with a view to finding strengths (Strengths can be used to mitigate deficits) and learning gaps, utilizing evidence-based systematic instruction delivered with treatment fidelity, and an ongoing progress monitoring.


2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milton J. Dehn

After defining psychological processing and providing descriptions of 10 interrelated neuropsychological processes, the author proposes an integrated model for identifying an individual's pattern of psychological processing strengths, weaknesses, and deficits when conducting a specific learning disability (SLD) assessment. The model incorporates approaches from other pattern of strengths and weaknesses (PSW) models, while adding three requirements designed to reduce psychometric concerns about the identification procedures. Details for analysing cross-battery data and recommendations for applying processing deficits to SLD determination are included. In support of the model, the article reviews research that links psychological processing deficits with specific learning disabilities. The article concludes with a brief overview of evidence-based interventions for psychological processing deficits.


2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia W. Berninger ◽  
Maggie O'Malley May

Programmatic, multidisciplinary research provided converging brain, genetic, and developmental support for evidence-based diagnoses of three specific learning disabilities based on hallmark phenotypes (behavioral expression of underlying genotypes) with treatment relevance: dysgraphia (impaired legible automatic letter writing, orthographic coding, and finger sequencing), dyslexia (impaired pseudoword reading, spelling, phonological and orthographic coding, rapid automatic naming, and executive functions; inhibition and rapid automatic switching), and oral and written language learning disability (same impairments as dyslexia plus morphological and syntactic coding and comprehension). Two case studies illustrate how these differential diagnoses can be made within a conceptual framework of a working memory architecture and generate treatment plans that transformed treatment nonresponders into treatment responders. Findings are discussed in reference to the importance of (a) considering individual differences (diagnosis of impaired hallmark phenotypes) in planning and evaluating response to instruction and modifying instruction when a student is not responding; (b) recognizing that teaching may change epigenetic gene expression at one stage of schooling, but not the underlying gene sequences that render individuals still vulnerable as curriculum requirements increase in nature, complexity, and volume in the upper grades; and (c) using evidence-based diagnoses of specific learning disabilities that are consistent across states for free and appropriate education K to 12 and for accommodations throughout higher education and professional credentialing.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Venkatesan ◽  
L. Lokesh

Background: Tests of intelligence are a prelude to the diagnosis of specific learning disabilities. This study selected three commonly preferred performance measures, such as the Porteus Maze Test (PMT), Seguin Form Board (SFB), and Gesell Drawing Test (GDT), to examine their inter-correlations. A single-shot correlation survey design was combined with convenience sampling to determine the nature, direction, degree, and extent of co-variance of test scores between the chosen tests for an overall sample of 161 students with specific learning disabilities. The overall trends and concerning personal-demographic variables like age, gender, level of schooling, and type of curriculum, were investigated. For the overall sample (N: 161), the obtained mean SFB mental age of 109.79 (SD: 20.38), GDT mental age of 98.80 (SD: 20.07), and PMT mental age of 103.75 (SD: 29.07) months. The GDT appears to be estimating mental ages less by five points against the PMT, and by twelve points against the SFB in the targeted children. Analysis of inter-correlations between the test scores on pairs for the three tests of intelligence shows moderate to highly significant correlation (p: 0.05) ranging from 0.48 and 0.53, irrespective of which among them is used as anchor test. This means that they all possess good convergent validity for their regular use during clinical practice in the diagnosis of children with learning disabilities.


2021 ◽  
pp. 13-22
Author(s):  
Uma Hamzić ◽  
Senad Bećirović

Gifted children with learning disabilities are known as twice-exceptional. Both the identification and the classification of twice-exceptional children are a matter for practical ingenuity, as these children tend to fall upon extremes of a scale, resulting in either the child with both obvious giftedness and a learning disability or in the child where the giftedness effectively masks the disability. The latter results in a child that tests as average upon surface-level assessments. In this article, a new direction of the identification of twice-exceptional students is proposed in terms of specific learning disabilities, specifically in terms of the latter form of students who go through education undiagnosed. In addition to this direction, we provide a condensed understanding of both giftedness and specific learning disabilities in students, as well as how they interact in twice-exceptionality, and how teachers might best navigate the issue of masking within the classroom.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 36 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Beaujean ◽  
Nicholas Benson ◽  
Ryan McGill ◽  
Stefan Dombrowski

The purpose of this article is to describe the origins of patterns of strengths and weaknesses (PSW) methods for identifying specific learning disabilities (SLD) and to provide a comprehensive review of the assumptions and evidence supporting the most commonly-used PSW method in the United States: Dual Discrepancy/Consistency (DD/C). Given their use in determining whether students have access to special education and related services, it is important that any method used to identify SLD have supporting evidence. A review of the DD/C evidence indicates it cannot currently be classified as an evidence-based method for identifying individuals with a SLD. We show that the DD/C method is unsound for three major reasons: (a) it requires test scores have properties that they fundamentally lack, (b) lack of experimental utility evidence supporting its use, and (c) evidence supporting the inability of the method to identify SLD accurately.


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