Alexander, Duane

Gray, David

Kavanagh, James

Lyon, G. Reid

Morris, Robin

English

ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University

Georgia State UniversityScholarWorks @ Georgia State UniversityPsychology Faculty Publications Department of Psychology1994Proposed guidelines and criteria for describingsamples of persons with learning disabilitiesRobin MorrisGeorgia State University, robinmorris@gsu.eduG. Reid LyonThe National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Reading4all@tx.rr.comDuane AlexanderThe National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, duane.alexander@nih.govDavid GrayThe National Institute of Chid Health and Human Development, graydb@wusm.wustl.eduJames KavanaghThe National Institute of Child Health and Human DevelopmentFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/psych_facpubPart of the Psychology CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Psychology at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in Psychology Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For moreinformation, please contact scholarworks@gsu.edu.Recommended CitationMorris, R., Lyon, G.R., Alexander, D., Gray, D.B., Kavanagh, J., Rourke, B.P. & Swanson, H.L. (1994). Proposed guidelines and criteriafor describing samples of persons with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 17:2, 106-109. EDITORIAL: PROPOSED GUIDELINES AND CRITERIA FOR DESCRIBING SAMPLES OF PERSONS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES   Robin  Morris,  G. Reid  Lyon,  Duane Alexander, David  B. Gray,   James Kavanagh, Byron  P. Rourke, and  H. Lee Swanson ROBIN  MORRIS, Ph.D., Georgia State University. G.  REID  LYON, Ph.D., DUANE ALEXANDER,  Ph.D.,  DAVID  B. GRAY, Ph.D.,  JAMES KAVANAGH, Ph.D.,  The  National  Institute of Child  Health  and  Human Development. BYRON P.  ROURKE, Ph.D., University of Windsor. H. LEE SWANSON, Ph.D.,  University of California-Riverside.    The field of learning disabilities has grown since its recognition as a handicapping condition in 1968 to represent almost one-half of the children receiving special education services in the United States. At the same time, learning disability remains one of the least understood, yet most debated disabling conditions that affect children and adults. The persistent confusion regarding learning disabilities is due, in large part, to the ambiguous way in which the category is defined. Unfortunately, such ambiguity results in tremendous differences in how educational and clinical professionals identify children who manifest learning disabilities.   In addition, confusion about the nature and needs of individuals with learning disabilities is exacerbated in the research arena because many researchers select their samples by simply drawing from classes of children with learning disabilities identified by school district procedures. As is now well known, these samples are biased in unknown ways because most selection procedures are influenced not only by objective test results, but by political and social factors operating within a given school district. In fact, it is more the rule than the exception that, because of inconsistent identification procedures and criteria, a child can literally be "cured" of a learning disability simply by moving across state lines or even by changing schools within the same community. Clearly, when research samples are taken from such sites, the variability inherent in sample characteristics prohibits replication and generalization of findings. This, in turn, constitutes a severe impediment to the development of any clinical science.   In an effort to address this problem with members of the research community, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsored a working conference with a number of journal editors to discuss the drafting of a position paper to delineate criteria for the description of subjects within samples of persons with learning disabilities. Within this context, scientists from NICHD (Duane Alexander, Reid Lyon, David Gray, and James Kavanagh) met with editorial representatives from the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology (Robin Morris), the Journal of Learning Disabilities (Judy Voress), the Learning Disability Quarterly (Lee Swanson), Exceptional Children (Naomi Zigmond), The Clinical Neuropsychologist (Byron Rourke), and the American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association (Tanya Gallagher). Editors from other major journals publishing research in the area of learning disabilities were also invited but could not attend.   On the basis of the discussion during this conference, a set of suggested guidelines were outlined for possible use by journal editors when reviewing studies involving research with persons with learning disabilities. Each journal editor was asked to review the guidelines and criteria with their editorial staff and their consulting editors and to provide NICHD with relevant feedback. It should also be pointed out that the NICHD has adopted the Basic Criteria delineated in this article when reviewing grant applications involving persons with learning disabilities. A rationale for improving descriptions of sample characteristics and the suggested guidelines are provided in the following sections.  A RATIONALE FOR IMPROVING THE DESCRIPTION OF  SAMPLES OF PERSONS WITH LD  One of the most basic activities of science is to define the object of interest and study. Diagnostic labels such as learning disabled represent a category of persons who have been of significant interest to a wide variety of disciplines. In the best of all scientific worlds, the term learning disabled should carry with it a very specific communication and scientific value as it would clearly define these attributes of the person that set him or her apart from other groups of persons who are not learning disabled. Unfortunately, as the field of learning disabilities has expanded, so have the boundaries of definition. Therefore, the term learning disabled has come to mean many different things to many different groups who are invested in it for a multitude of sociopolitical as well as scientific reasons. Consequently, the term has lost much of its communicative value and scientific rigor.   To assist in reversing this process, we need to become more specific in our research and communicative use of the term learning disabled. Given the absence of a widely accepted or validated definition, there is also a need to allow for a broad array of possibilities for its use until better scientific data are available to allow for a more restrictive implementation. Further, all authors must be more sensitive about research procedures for describing their subjects and populations.   In the past, authors have frequently described such children as "meeting local school criteria for learning disability services" or "children who were referred to the learning disability clinic of a local university." Obtaining additional information about each child's characteristics can be problematic due to confidentiality issues. Unfortunately, however, such descriptions are completely inadequate for either communicative or scientific purposes. As mentioned in the introduction, this is mostly because each school system uses different procedures and guidelines to identify such children, and the act of referral does not mean that any person actually has such a learning disability.  SUGGESTED GUIDELINES AND CRITERIA  To help improve the communicative and scientific use of the term learning disabled, the following criteria and guidelines will be used when reviewing all manuscripts focused on persons with learning disabilities for discussion of criteria (also see Rosenberg et al., 1992). The criteria are ordered in terms of increasing scientific sophistication and specificity in their descriptions, which should lead to increasingly more useful research and communicative terminology. The assumption underlying these guidelines is that descriptions of subjects with learning disabilities that allow clear cross-study comparisons or specific replication represent basic and essential attributes of good communication and/or science. These guidelines neither specify what a learning disability is, nor do they restrict authors from using the definitions of their choice. However, they do require authors to provide specific and descriptive information about the subjects whom they call learning disabled, so that others can be better informed. In this manner the term will at least be defined clearly for a specific purpose.  Minimal Criteria  If studies use subjects who have been predefined via another process (i.e., school district psychologists), and there is no access to such assessment results, then at minimum, the authors should provide clear descriptions of what the selection processes are and define the guidelines for inclusion. As an example, we suggest the following: "All elementary-school children met local district criteria for a specific learning disability in reading. Learning disability in reading is defined in standardized guidelines as representing a discrepancy of 22 standardized points (M=100, SD=15) between a Full Scale IQ score (using WISC-R or Stanford-Binet) and at least 2 standardized administered tests of word identification and passage comprehension (Woodcock-Johnson, PIAT). The children also have to demonstrate an area of specific cognitive deficit (phonemic awareness, verbal memory, etc.) related to their reading deficit. This cognitive deficit should also be defined by standardized, individually administered tests." In addition, other inclusionary or exclusionary criteria used to select the sample should be clearly described. The more operationally the criteria can be described, the better. For example, it is better to state that "all children were rated on the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist by their teachers and any child who had a Tscore above 70 on the hyperactivity scale was not included" than to say that "hyperactive children were not included.”   Also, the more details that are available about the subject group studied, the better. At a minimum, basic demographic information on the sample has to be provided. This must include such information as sex, age, grade level, length of time in special education services, race, and socioeconomic makeup (which may have to be estimated using other information such as child's zip code in relation to census data regarding socioeconomic status, etc.).   The sample's mean, mode, and median results (and SDs) on group achievement tests or other group-based data are always useful because they allow others to compare the current sample with other samples. Without such information there is no way to compare similarities and differences between studies and results.  Basic Criteria  In addition to the minimal criteria described above, the basic level of specificity requires greater detail when describing the nature of the sample as a whole. The following information should be gathered: gender, age, grade level, length of time in special education placement, type of special education placement, race, SES, IQ, and specific achievement test results. Each standardized test should be clearly identified, and an increased attempt should be made to provide information about the subjects' academic functioning outside the areas of deficit.   For example, it is common for authors to assess oral reading ability to identify a child with such a deficit, but rarely do they provide information about the child's mechanical arithmetic abilities. Clearly, some children may have both problems, while others do not. The more specific the sample, and the more specific the theoretical question, the more description is needed to better define the subject sample.   Consequently, authors should provide their definition of what a child with learning disabilities is and provide very specific details regarding how the subjects were selected for inclusion in the study as well as relevant exclusionary criteria. If control or contrast groups are involved, details should relate how these groups were selected and similar demographic data and test results should be provided. Unfortunately, sample means and standard deviations do not allow for easy study replication, as it is very difficult to gather another sample with similar average characteristics.  Peak Criteria  Scientifically, the most useful studies in any area are those that allow for complete replication in another laboratory, site, or sample. To make this possible, researchers have to provide clearly documented and operationalized definitions for their subject selection criteria. In addition, studies typically should apply such subject selection criteria in an a priori manner. Criteria for control groups should also be delineated in an a priori manner. This emphasis on a priori identification of selection criteria is intended to enhance careful replication efforts.   In reports using peak criteria, authors should provide detailed information about the specific tests and measures they used, the specific scores they used for decision purposes, any exclusionary criteria involved, and the number of subjects meeting these a priori criteria who were identified within their initial sample. In addition, details on who evaluated the child and their qualifications should be included. Finally, authors should provide the same basic demographic and standardized test results information and group summary data as described for Basic Criteria.  SUMMARY  None of the criteria discussed above specifies the definitions to be used or what research questions are important. The purpose of suggesting these guidelines and criteria is simply to help improve the communicative and scientific uses of the term learning disabled. Regardless of the criteria used, the guidelines will allow for greater possibility of study-to-study comparisons and actual replications. This will allow the field of learning disabilities to become more clearly focused on its most basic activity-to better define and understand this unique and special object of interest and study. REFERENCES Bender, W., Rivera, D., & Wilson, R. (1992). Mini-   Rosenberg, M., Bott,   D., Majsterek, D., Chiang, B., Simmons,  D., Gartland, D., Wesson, C.,  Graham, S.,  Smith  Myles, B.,  Miller, M., Swanson,   H.L., mum standards for the description of participants in learning disabilities research.  Learning Disability Quarterly, 15, 65-70.     

Proposed guidelines and criteria for describing samples of persons with learning disabilities

Georgia State University

Georgia State University
ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University
Psychology Faculty Publications Department of Psychology
1994
Proposed guidelines and criteria for describing
samples of persons with learning disabilities
Robin Morris
Georgia State University, robinmorris@gsu.edu
G. Reid Lyon
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Reading4all@tx.rr.com
Duane Alexander
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, duane.alexander@nih.gov
David Gray
The National Institute of Chid Health and Human Development, graydb@wusm.wustl.edu
James Kavanagh
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/psych_facpub
Part of the Psychology Commons
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Psychology at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been
accepted for inclusion in Psychology Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more
information, please contact scholarworks@gsu.edu.
Recommended Citation
Morris, R., Lyon, G.R., Alexander, D., Gray, D.B., Kavanagh, J., Rourke, B.P. & Swanson, H.L. (1994). Proposed guidelines and criteria
for describing samples of persons with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 17:2, 106-109.
 EDITORIAL
: PROPOSED GUIDELINES AND CRITERIA FOR 
DESCRIBING SAMPLES OF PERSONS WITH 
LEARNING DISABILITIES 
 
 
Robin  Morris,  G. Reid  Lyon,  Duane Alexander, David  B. Gray, 
  James Kavanagh, Byron  P. Rourke, and  H. Lee 
Swanson 
ROBIN  MORRIS, Ph.D., Georgia State University. 
G.  REID  LYON, Ph.D., DUANE ALEXANDER,  Ph.D.,  DAVID  B. GRAY, Ph.D.,  JAMES 
KAVANAGH, Ph.D.,  The  National  Institute of Child  Health  and  Human Development. 
BYRON P.  ROURKE, Ph.D., University of Windsor. 
H. LEE SWANSON, Ph.D.,  University of California-Riverside. 
 
 
 The field of learning disabilities has grown since its recognition as a handicapping condition in 
1968 to represent almost one-half of the children receiving special education services in the United 
States. At the same time, learning disability remains one of the least understood, yet most debated 
disabling conditions that affect children and adults. The persistent confusion regarding learning 
disabilities is due, in large part, to the ambiguous way in which the category is defined. Unfortunately, 
such ambiguity results in tremendous differences in how educational and clinical professionals identify 
children who manifest learning disabilities. 
 
 In addition, confusion about the nature and needs of individuals with learning disabilities is 
exacerbated in the research arena because many researchers select their samples by simply drawing 
from classes of children with learning disabilities identified by school district procedures. As is now 
well known, these samples are biased in unknown ways because most selection procedures are 
influenced not only by objective test results, but by political and social factors operating within a given 
school district. In fact, it is more the rule than the exception that, because of inconsistent identification 
procedures and criteria, a child can literally be "cured" of a learning disability simply by moving across 
state lines or even by changing schools within the same community. Clearly, when research samples 
are taken from such sites, the variability inherent in sample characteristics prohibits replication and 
generalization of findings. This, in turn, constitutes a severe impediment to the development of any 
clinical science. 
 
 In an effort to address this problem with members of the research community, the National 
Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) within the National Institutes of Health 
(NIH) sponsored a working conference with a number of journal editors to discuss the drafting of a 
position paper to delineate criteria for the description of subjects within samples of persons with 
learning disabilities. Within this context, scientists from NICHD (Duane Alexander, Reid Lyon, David 
Gray, and James Kavanagh) met with editorial representatives from the Journal of Clinical and 
Experimental Neuropsychology (Robin Morris), the Journal of Learning Disabilities (Judy Voress), the 
Learning Disability Quarterly (Lee Swanson), Exceptional Children (Naomi Zigmond), The Clinical 
Neuropsychologist (Byron Rourke), and the American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association 
(Tanya Gallagher). Editors from other major journals publishing research in the area of learning 
disabilities were also invited but could not attend. 
 
 On the basis of the discussion during this conference, a set of suggested guidelines were 
outlined for possible use by journal editors when reviewing studies involving research with persons 
with learning disabilities. Each journal editor was asked to review the guidelines and criteria with their 
editorial staff and their consulting editors and to provide NICHD with relevant feedback. It 
should also be pointed out that the NICHD has adopted the Basic Criteria delineated in this article 
when reviewing grant applications involving persons with learning disabilities. A rationale for 
improving descriptions of sample characteristics and the suggested guidelines are provided in the 
following sections. 
 
A RATIONALE FOR IMPROVING THE DESCRIPTION OF  
SAMPLES OF PERSONS WITH LD 
 One of the most basic activities of science is to define the object of interest and study. 
Diagnostic labels such as learning disabled represent a category of persons who have been of 
significant interest to a wide variety of disciplines. In the best of all scientific worlds, the term learning 
disabled should carry with it a very specific communication and scientific value as it would clearly 
define these attributes of the person that set him or her apart from other groups of persons who are 
not learning disabled. Unfortunately, as the field of learning disabilities has expanded, so have the 
boundaries of definition. Therefore, the term learning disabled has come to mean many different 
things to many different groups who are invested in it for a multitude of sociopolitical as well as 
scientific reasons. Consequently, the term has lost much of its communicative value and scientific 
rigor. 
 
 To assist in reversing this process, we need to become more specific in our research and 
communicative use of the term learning disabled. Given the absence of a widely accepted or validated 
definition, there is also a need to allow for a broad array of possibilities for its use until better scientific 
data are available to allow for a more restrictive implementation. Further, all authors must be more 
sensitive about research procedures for describing their subjects and populations. 
 
 In the past, authors have frequently described such children as "meeting local school criteria 
for learning disability services" or "children who were referred to the learning disability clinic of a local 
university." Obtaining additional information about each child's characteristics can be problematic due 
to confidentiality issues. Unfortunately, however, such descriptions are completely inadequate for 
either communicative or scientific purposes. As mentioned in the introduction, this is mostly because 
each school system uses different procedures and guidelines to identify such children, and the act of 
referral does not mean that any person actually has such a learning disability. 
 
SUGGESTED GUIDELINES AND CRITERIA 
 To help improve the communicative and scientific use of the term learning disabled, the 
following criteria and guidelines will be used when reviewing all manuscripts focused on persons with 
learning disabilities for discussion of criteria (also see Rosenberg et al., 1992). The criteria are ordered 
in terms of increasing scientific sophistication and specificity in their descriptions, which should lead 
to increasingly more useful research and communicative terminology. The assumption underlying 
these guidelines is that descriptions of subjects with learning disabilities that allow clear cross-study 
comparisons or specific replication represent basic and essential attributes of good communication 
and/or science. These guidelines neither specify what a learning disability is, nor do they restrict 
authors from using the definitions of their choice. However, they do require authors to provide 
specific and descriptive information about the subjects whom they call learning disabled, so that others 
can be better informed. In this manner the term will at least be defined clearly for a specific purpose. 
 
Minimal Criteria 
 If studies use subjects who have been predefined via another process (i.e., school district 
psychologists), and there is no access to such assessment results, then at minimum, the authors should 
provide clear descriptions of what the selection processes are and define the guidelines for inclusion. 
As an example, we suggest the following: "All elementary-school children met local district criteria for 
a specific learning disability in reading. Learning disability in reading is defined in standardized 
guidelines as representing a discrepancy of 22 standardized points (M=100, SD=15) between a Full 
Scale IQ score (using WISC-R or Stanford-Binet) and at least 2 standardized administered tests of 
word identification and passage comprehension (Woodcock-Johnson, PIAT). The children also have 
to demonstrate an area of specific cognitive deficit (phonemic awareness, verbal memory, etc.) related 
to their reading deficit. This cognitive deficit should also be defined by standardized, individually 
administered tests." 
In addition, other inclusionary or exclusionary criteria used to select the sample should be clearly 
described. The more operationally the criteria can be described, the better. For example, it is better to 
state that "all children were rated on the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist by their teachers and 
any child who had a Tscore above 70 on the hyperactivity scale was not included" than to say that 
"hyperactive children were not included.” 
  
Also, the more details that are available about the subject group studied, the better. At a minimum, 
basic demographic information on the sample has to be provided. This must include such information 
as sex, age, grade level, length of time in special education services, race, and socioeconomic makeup 
(which may have to be estimated using other information such as child's zip code in relation to census 
data regarding socioeconomic status, etc.). 
 
 The sample's mean, mode, and median results (and SDs) on group achievement tests or other 
group-based data are always useful because they allow others to compare the current sample with 
other samples. Without such information there is no way to compare similarities and differences 
between studies and results. 
 
Basic Criteria 
 In addition to the minimal criteria described above, the basic level of specificity requires 
greater detail when describing the nature of the sample as a whole. The following information should 
be gathered: gender, age, grade level, length of time in special education placement, type of special 
education placement, race, SES, IQ, and specific achievement test results. Each standardized test 
should be clearly identified, and an increased attempt should be made to provide information about 
the subjects' academic functioning outside the areas of deficit. 
 
 For example, it is common for authors to assess oral reading ability to identify a child with 
such a deficit, but rarely do they provide information about the child's mechanical arithmetic abilities. 
Clearly, some children may have both problems, while others do not. The more specific the sample, 
and the more specific the theoretical question, the more description is needed to better define the 
subject sample. 
 
 Consequently, authors should provide their definition of what a child with learning disabilities 
is and provide very specific details regarding how the subjects were selected for inclusion in the study 
as well as relevant exclusionary criteria. If control or contrast groups are involved, details should relate 
how these groups were selected and similar demographic data and test results should be provided. 
Unfortunately, sample means and standard deviations do not allow for easy study replication, as it is 
very difficult to gather another sample with similar average characteristics. 
 
Peak Criteria 
 Scientifically, the most useful studies in any area are those that allow for complete replication 
in another laboratory, site, or sample. To make this possible, researchers have to provide clearly 
documented and operationalized definitions for their subject selection criteria. In addition, studies 
typically should apply such subject selection criteria in an a priori manner. Criteria for control groups 
should also be delineated in an a priori manner. This emphasis on a priori identification of selection 
criteria is intended to enhance careful replication efforts. 
 
 In reports using peak criteria, authors should provide detailed information about the specific 
tests and measures they used, the specific scores they used for decision purposes, any exclusionary 
criteria involved, and the number of subjects meeting these a priori criteria who were identified within 
their initial sample. In addition, details on who evaluated the child and their qualifications should be 
included. Finally, authors should provide the same basic demographic and standardized test results 
information and group summary data as described for Basic Criteria. 
 
SUMMARY 
 None of the criteria discussed above specifies the definitions to be used or what research 
questions are important. The purpose of suggesting these guidelines and criteria is simply to help 
improve the communicative and scientific uses of the term learning disabled. Regardless of the criteria 
used, the guidelines will allow for greater possibility of study-to-study comparisons and actual 
replications. This will allow the field of learning disabilities to become more clearly focused on its most 
basic activity-to better define and understand this unique and special object of interest and study. 
REFERENCES Bender, W., Rivera, D., & Wilson, R. (1992). Mini-  
 
Rosenberg, M., Bott,   D., Majsterek, D., Chiang, B., 
Simmons,  D., Gartland, D., Wesson, C.,  Graham, 
S.,  Smith  Myles, B.,  Miller, M., Swanson,   H.L., 
mum standards for the description of participants in 
learning disabilities research.  Learning Disability 
Quarterly, 15, 65-70. 
 
 
 
 


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Proposed guidelines and criteria for describing samples of persons with learning disabilities

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