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Learning Disabilities
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What is Learning Disabilities?

Learning disabilities are a broad category of neurological differences that affect how individuals acquire, process, and retain information. The topic appears frequently in education courses, special education programs, and developmental psychology curricula because it sits at the intersection of cognitive science, classroom practice, and equity in schooling. Students write about learning disabilities to understand how these conditions are identified, how they affect academic performance, and how teachers and institutions can better serve children and individuals who learn differently. The subject is academically rich because it challenges assumptions about ability, intelligence, and what it means to succeed in formal educational settings.

The papers archived on this topic reflect a wide range of approaches. Some take a definitional or diagnostic angle, examining what constitutes a true learning disability and whether current identification practices are reliable or consistent. Others focus on instructional strategies, including effective mathematics instruction and repeated reading programs as alternative teaching methods for students with learning disabilities. Comparative and demographic analyses appear as well, such as work exploring gender differences observed with learning disabilities or the experiences of gifted children who also have learning disabilities. Additional papers examine inclusive classroom environments and the needs of students at risk more broadly.

A strong essay on this topic begins with a clearly scoped thesis — arguing for a specific instructional approach, critiquing an identification framework, or analyzing outcomes for a defined group such as children in inclusive classrooms. Evidence drawn from educational research, classroom observations, and documented teaching interventions tends to carry the most weight. A common pitfall is treating learning disabilities as a single uniform condition; strong writing acknowledges the significant variation across different disability types and individual learners.

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Essay Doctorate
Early identification of reading problems in middle-grade elementary students
Critique of Spence, Deborah L, et al, Identifying Children in Middle Childhood Who are at Risk for Reading Problems: New evidence and to analyze and access an appropriate tool for reading in elementary students using a response to intervention model, School Psychology Review 2010, Volume 39, No.2 , pp258-276 • The term paper assignment for this class requires you to select a scientific article published in a journal selected from a list of approved journals, and then critique the research methods used in that article using what you learned in this course. It is also OK in your critique to mention things about the methodology that were done right. Also, while I don't expect you to become an expert in the subject of your chosen article, I do expect you to look at the scientific literature on that subject—and one way to do that would be to read some of the studies the authors' of your chosen article cite—and incorporate information from that literature in your paper where appropriate. • The list of approved journals from which the article you critique may be selected is as follows: American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, International Journal of Aging & Human Development, Social Problem, Sociological Perspectives, Sociological Quarterly, of Sociology of Education. • If you want to use an article from a different journal than these, you will have to show me the article you select so that I can approve it. In that case please do NOT email me a copy of the article. Instead, print it out and show it to me before or after class or during office hours. The article must be from a scholarly scientific journal (not a magazine, etc.) and it must be a research article (not an opinion piece, etc.). I do not have to see or approve the article in advance if it is in one of the approved journals. • The article you select must be quantitative in nature, in other words it must present numbers and statistics. Also, make sure what you have selected is an actual research article (a good indicator of that is if the article has an abstract at the beginning of it). • To locate the articles published in those journals online, follow these steps. Go to Blackboard for the course, click on the USF Libraries tab, the select "All USF Libraries", then click on "E Journals by Title", then type in the name of one of the approved journals, then select a year for the journal, then select one of the electronic sources for articles in that journal (JSTOR, Ebcohost, etc.). The procedure may vary a little from what I have said here, so use common sense as you point and click through it. If you have any problems, one of the librarians on the first floor of the main USF library can help you, or call Academic Computing Help at 974-1222. • Once you pull up the pdf of the article you want to use, a good idea is to download it to your computer's desktop (or better yet a memory stick or other external storage device in case your computer crashes). Or you could just print it out, since you will have to attach a printed copy of the article to your term paper when you turn it in. • Your paper must be typed, and you must staple a copy of the article you critiqued to the back of it. In other words, your paper will go on top, with the article underneath it and stapled to it. Do NOT turn the paper in in a plastic binder or in any form other than stapled. Make sure both your name and your U number are on your typed paper. • The best tip I can give for doing the paper is just to take the basic points made in class and in the readings, and then see if the article violated any of those things or did them right. For example, in class we said you need to have a probability sample in order to test for statistical significance. So if the article you picked doesn't have a probability sample but they ran significance tests anyway, that would be a critique. As another example, in class we said that a research study should include all possible variables that could affect the outcome variable. So if you can think of explanatory variables the authors didn't include, that would be another critique. On the other hand, if your chosen article did these things right, then you could compliment the authors for that. In other words just make a list of the points about statistics we made in class and/or were mentioned in the book, and then take that list and see if your article did those things right. Remember also to take a look at some of the other studies on that topic and incorporate information from those into your paper where appropriate. • When you critique the methods the authors used, it would be a plus if you could also suggest alternatives that would have been better. For instance if the authors did an experiment and they try to generalize from that to the society in general, you could mention that we learned in class that experiments are typically weak on generalizability and you could suggest that the authors might have been better off using a survey (if the advantages of a survey would in fact outweight those of an experiment for that particular topic). • When you critique or praise methodology, be specific and say why the methods are good or incorrect. For example, don't just say "the authors shouldn't have use tests of statistical significance", instead give the reason (for example "the authors shouldn't have used tests of statistical significance because they have a nonprobability sample and we learned in class that you need to have a probability sample to properly do significance tests."). • For the format of the term paper as well as an example of how to do it, see the term paper example I have posted in the Course Documents section of Blackboard. The article my example paper critiques is also in the Course Documents section. The format you should use for your paper is to state the page, column, and paragraph number for each comment you want to make, and then briefly make the comment just like I did in my example. Notice in the example paper that I critiqued the methods when the authors were wrong, I complimented them when they did something well, and I discussed their study in light of what other studies on that topic show. I don't necessarily expect your paper to be as detailed as mine (after all I've been doing this for years) but at least it will give you an idea of how to do the assignment.
Paper Doctorate
Parent training and inclusion strategies for special education curriculum reform
Special Education Curriculum Improvement Ideas
Research Paper Doctorate
Prenatal development and childhood experiences in human learning
A person's development includes the changes that continue throughout one's life. Development is usually described in periods of time, so there is consistency among different theories that describe the stages that people…
Paper Undergraduate
Reconciling special education IEPs with No Child Left Behind mandates
Most of the frustrations vented at the special education process are directed at regulations. Regulations vary from state to state and in some cases, district to district. Yet the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act…
Research Paper Doctorate
Diet and weight gain in severely mentally ill patients with diabetes comorbidity
SMI & DIABETES COMORBIDITY: THE EXPANDING ROLE of the NURSE PRACTITIONER
Research Paper Doctorate
Short-term memory training effects on learning disabilities in adolescents
¶ … memory on Learning Disabilities. I believe that there is a strong correlation between the two and that short-term memory is directly affected by Learning Disabilities.
Research Paper Doctorate
Standards-based curriculum implementation: roles for administrators and teachers
The purpose of this project is to devise a plan, based on research, to provide a standards-based professional development for staff at a selected school. To this end, an analysis of the respective roles of…
Research Paper Doctorate
Testing and assessment practices for school-aged disabled individuals
There have been a number of recent studies that have been done on testing and assessment, and they have focused on various populations. Many of them have been focused on populations of various individuals in schools,…
Essay Undergraduate
Peer mentoring program for African-American male juvenile offenders
This paper proposes a new program specifically designed to deal with the needs of African-American males in juvenile detention facilities. African-Americans make up a disproportionate number of incarcerated juveniles. Viewed in tandem with high drop-out rates, the vocational prospects of this demographic of juvenile detainees seems bleak. The program strives to address academic as well as social deficits.
Paper Undergraduate
Bullying victimization by race, gender, and perceived isolation in schools
The destructive ramifications of bullying behavior in schools has become an issue of national (and even worldwide) concern for the safety of students. The fact that there has been an increase in school shootings has…