Research consistently illustrates that several intellectual disabilities--namely, learning disabilities (LD), low intelligence, challenging behavior, and inadequate adaptive behavior, as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)--are considered risk factors for antisocial and criminal behavior. Although much attention has been paid to the relationship of LD, ADHD, and criminal behavior, three research topics have been overlooked: the frequency of LD with ADHD among inmates, the relationship between LD and/or ADHD and level of education among prisoners, and the connection between LD and/or ADHD and age of criminal onset. The present study examined the frequency of LD and ADHD in a sample of Israeli-born prisoners, in addition to the frequency of each category by itself, and it investigated the relationship of LD and/or ADHD, school dropout age, and onset of criminal activity.

Disparities among the different abilities of students with learning disabilities have attracted extensive research. The attention has largely focused on how low abilities mask good or high potential intellectual level, and the resulting frustration. Correspondingly, the literature has also concentrated on the methods of detection required to reveal such potential and strategic, therapeutic, and pedagogical strategies for realizing it. However, despite the large volume of research, there has been no examination to date of the emotional impact of the continual fluctuations between success and failure created by such gaps, and its implications for the development of self among these individuals. The purpose of the present research, which was based on a qualitative approach and semi-structured interviews with 22 adult art students with learning disabilities and high intellectual ability, was to examine the perceived relationship between this dissonance and the self-perception. Major findings include extreme fluctuations in the learning experience of the participants play a major role, such fluctuations have significant effects on participants' emotional and behavioral worlds, and fluctuations in the learning experience of students with learning disabilities and high intellectual ability have critical implications on their overall self-perceptions. The conclusions and implications are discussed extensively.

This research explores the rate of learning disabilities (LD) within the Hebrewspeaking adult prison population in Israel, examining the relationship between LD and dropping out of school with criminal behavior. The study finds that the frequency of LD is very high among Israeli inmates (69.6%) and that a gap exists between LD inmates' awareness of their scholastic weakness in school and the educational system's ignorance. Implications of these results are discussed.

The main purpose of this study, based on research conducted in two randomly selected maximum-security prisons in Israel, is to explore the effectiveness of Bibliodidactics, a unique teaching reading method. The research found Bibliodidactics significantly improves the levels of technical reading among nonnative illiterate and poor-reading prisoners of Hebrew. The method is also significantly more efficient for nonnative illiterate prisoners, both in reading comprehension and in technical reading. The authors conclude that literacy instruction for struggling readers benefits from a focus on emotional processing of text, providing meaningful contexts to learning materials that motivate and sustain the readers’ interest.