Looking Backward to Look Forward: Reflections of Past Presidents of the Council for Learning Disabilities

Anniversaries offer a time for reflection, celebration, validation, and sometimes, simply a candid conversation on the current state of a field. In the field of learning disabilities, anniversaries offer a time to consider how far the field has come and just how far is left to go to understand what a learning disability is. Definitional understanding is foundational for moving forward. This column presents findings from a series of short conversations with past presidents of the Council for Learning Disabilities, individuals who are also leading experts in the field of learning disabilities. Results suggest four different thoughts about the definition of learning disabilities, two main themes regarding areas in which the field needs to focus, and two themes specific to where the field may be headed in the next 20 to 25 years. The column concludes with a discussion of implications for the future

Promoting Content Knowledge of Secondary Students With Learning Disabilities Through Comprehension Strategies

Students with learning disabilities struggle with basic comprehension skills across all content areas. By pairing comprehension strategies with content instruction, secondary content area teachers can strengthen students’ reading skills and content knowledge. This article provides an overview of two comprehension strategies, anticipation guides and double entry journals, that align with research-based recommendations in adolescent literacy and that can be employed across the primary content areas (i.e., English language arts, social/global studies, mathematics, and science)

A not-so-simple view of adolescent writing

According to the Simple View of Writing, four primary skills are necessary for successful writing (Berninger & Amtmann, 2003; Berninger & Winn, 2006). Transcription skills (e.g., handwriting, spelling) represent lower-order cognitive tasks, whereas text generation skills (e.g., ideation, translation) represent higher-order writing/cognitive abilities. Self-regulatory executive functions include the attentional and regulatory abilities that help manage the writing process, and working memory represents the cognitive complexity of the writing process. Exploratory factor analysis was used to explore the relations amongst the components of the Simple View of Writing. A one-way ANOVA tested for differences between struggling and non-struggling writers on the observed variables. Results revealed a two-factor model, suggesting writing is more multidimensional. Statistically significant differences were observed between struggling and non-struggling writers on all measures except the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function – Self-Report and the Graphic Speed task of the Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting

CHAPTER 3. QUANTITATIVE PERSPECTIVES TO THE STUDY OF WRITING ACROSS THE LIFESPAN: A CONCEPTUAL OVERVIEW AND FOCUS ON STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING

As echoed throughout this edited collection, writing researchers are well aware of the complexities involved when adopting lifespan approaches to the study of written language. Writing researchers come from a wide array of fields (e.g., composition studies, rhetoric, psychology, education, and special education) that adopt different methodological approaches to answer a variety of research questions. A central issue to unpacking the complexities underlying the development of written language across the lifespan requires examining the available tools and methods offered by different research designs to pose and answer different types of research questions

Secondary Teachers’ Beliefs About Teaching Writing to Typically Achieving and Struggling Adolescent Writers

Writing is a critical component of many secondary classrooms, but little is known about teachers’ beliefs and assumptions surrounding their teaching of writing at the secondary level (particularly including the beliefs of special educators) and teaching writing to students with disabilities. Yet, teachers’ beliefs impact their own perceptions and judgments, which can then affect their behavior (i.e., instructional decisions) within their classrooms. The purpose of this study was to describe middle and high school general and special educators’ beliefs about writing. Results of this study demonstrated that secondary teachers (a) felt somewhat self-efficacious about teaching writing and somewhat less self-efficacious about effecting change in students’ writing, (b) moderately emphasized explicitly teaching writing, (c) were less likely to make adaptations for struggling writers across several writing practices, and (d) placed less emphasis on teaching basic transcription skills. Although limitations related to sample size preclude further disaggregated analyses, this study offers an early examination of teachers’ writing beliefs across several content domains. Changing writing practices in secondary classrooms will necessitate instructional methods that are individualized to meet students’ needs as well as a personal examination of one’s own beliefs to ensure that what one believes is not inhibiting the delivery of effective instructional writing practices

Challenges students identified with a learning disability and as high-achieving experience when using diagrams as a visualization tool to solve mathematics word problems

This article addresses a much understudied topic and concern regarding how students of varying ability levels employ visualization as a strategy in mathematics learning. The importance of this topic can be found in its connection to students’ ability to solve mathematical word problems. Many students, particularly students with learning disabilities, often struggle to use visualization as a strategy and this impacts their mathematics performance. The purpose of this article is to present findings from a study that examined the challenges that students—those identified as learning disabled and high-achieving—displayed when using one visualization form, a diagram, to solve mathematics problems. Overall, nine challenges related to the use of diagram proficiency to solve problems were identified. Further, students with learning disabilities were found to be more likely than their high achieving peers to experience these challenges. Implications for practice are provided

CHAPTER 12. INFORMING INQUIRY INTO WRITING ACROSS THE LIFESPAN FROM PERSPECTIVES ON STUDENTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES OR AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER

The value of writing is not limited to single points of time in our lives but serves many different purposes across the lifespan (Bazerman et al., 2018). For instance, young children begin to experiment with writing as early as two years of age, using it as a vehicle for play, communication, and self-expression (Rowe, 2008). With the advent of school, the purposes for writing expand greatly to include writing to inform, persuade, describe, summarize, learn, and narrate to identify just some of the ways children, adolescents, and young adults learn to write and use writing as part of their education. During adulthood, writing is a staple of life at both work and home. White and blue collar workers commonly use writing to perform their jobs (Light, 2001), and adults frequently use writing throughout the day to initiate and maintain personal connections, as they tweet, text, email, and connect with each other using a variety of social networks and media (Freedman et al., 2016)

Chapter 4: Using Curriculum-Based Measurement Fluency Data for Initial Screening Decisions

Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) has enjoyed a long history of success and study as a practice for data-based decision-making (Deno, 2003). Originally developed and studied at the University of Minnesota in the mid-1970s (see Shinn, 2012 or Tindal, 2013 for a detailed history), Stan Deno and his colleagues developed CBM measures and the problem-solving process as part of one of the Institutes for Research on Learning Disabilities (IRLDs), centers funded by the Office of Special Education Programs that addressed significant issues for students with learning dis- abilities. With Deno’s interests in applied behavior analysis, it seemed logical to apply methodologies such as collecting baseline data, setting goals for students, and collecting and graphing ongoing data and then using them to make educational decisions, as a student’s data is compared to a goal. As part of work in the IRLD, that is exactly what Deno and colleagues did, developing a system of technically adequate (i.e., reliable and valid) assessments that could be administered quickly and efficiently up to three times per week. These data would be graphed on an ongoing basis and compared with a goal set for a student. If data fell below the student’s goal for a specified number of points, a curricular change or instructional tweak would be instituted. All of these components were couched in a problem-solving process so that teachers and teams could utilize on a frequent basis to help make better decisions about student learning. As you will note already, the CBM process or model is not just the measures themselves, but the use of those measures in a more comprehensive, problem-solving process. In this chapter the use of CBM, and specifically CBMs as measures of fluency, is discussed in depth. The theoretical support for measures of fluency is discussed along with more detailed research that supports the use of CBM, basic components of the process, and using CBM data to make screening decisions across a variety of academic subjects

Special Education Teachers’ Perceptions of Students’ With Disabilities Ability, Instructional Needs, and Difficulties Using Visual Representations to Solve Mathematics Problems

In this article, we present findings that examined special education teachers’ perception of students’ with disabilities ability, instructional needs, and difficulties for using visual representations (VRs) as a strategy to solve mathematics problems. In addition, whether these perceptions differed by instructional grade or setting currently teaching was examined. Survey data from 97 in-service teachers revealed, regardless of instructional setting or grade level taught, that they believe students with disabilities have the ability to learn about and use VRs and need to be taught to use VRs. Furthermore, the special education teachers perceived students with disabilities to have difficulty with all aspects related to using VRs in mathematical problem-solving. Implications for teacher training and development are provided