This article reviews published research on spelling interventions designed for students with learning disabilities (LD) who are poor spellers. Thirty-eight spelling studies, including singlesubject and group designs, were located. Study interventions consisted of four types: instructional techniques, computer-assisted instruction, study strategies, and multisensory/modality training. These studies are discussed here with regard to subjects, methods, and findings. Conclusions and implications for spelling instruction and for future research are presented.Students with learning disabilities (LD) have lower achievement levels than their low-achieving nondisabled peers across all subject areas, but spelling ability is the most powerful discriminator between students with LD and other low achievers (Deshler, Schumaker, Alley, Warner, & Clark, 1982). Although spelling deficits are frequently identified during elementary school years, these deficits increase as students reach secondary education levels (Poplin, Gray, Larsen, Banikowski, 8c Mehring, 1980). One study documented a third-grade mean spelling score among seventh-grade adolescents with LD (Deshler, Schumaker, Alley, Warner, 8c Clark, 1982).Spelling is closely related to other subjects, particularly to reading (Beers, 1980). However, controversy exists between researchers who contend that spelling is a natural extension of reading and others (e.g., Chomsky, 1979) who argue that writing, a more concrete task, developmentally occurs first (see Vacca, Vacca, 8cGove, 1987, for a discussion). Nevertheless, agreement exists that spelling is a more difficult task than reading (Frith, 1980;Nelson, 1980); it requires production of an exact sequence of letters, offers no contextual clues, and requires greater numbers of grapheme-to-phoneme decisions.There are several possible reasons for the persistence of severe spelling deficits for students with LD. First, teacher preparation for spelling instruction may be overlooked, due to an overriding emphasis on the instruction of reading and mathematics. Second, minimal instructional time may be allocated to spelling due to beliefs that spelling is of secondary importance in today's extensive curriculum. Third, believing that students acquired these techniques in the primary grades, teachers may neglect instruction in effective spelling strategies. Address: Barbara Mushinski Fulk, Special Education Section, School of Education, LAEB, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907.However, there are reasons to be optimistic about helping students with LD to learn to spell. First, the spelling skill of students with LD is similar developmentally to that of nondisabled students (Gerber, 1986). Second, cognitive strategies, such as those employed for spelling, are generalizable to other academic areas, particularly with training for transfer and teacher prompts (Deshler et al., 1983). Third, in 35 of the 38 spelling interventions presented in this review, explicit spelling instruction resulted in improved spelling performance.Given th...

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Information recorded on Transition Planning Guides (TPGs) was compared with student and parent perceptions regarding postschool goals and anticipated support needs. Findings revealed little relationship between the postschool outcomes and support needs recorded on TPGs and the postschool outcomes and support needs expressed by students and parents during interviews. Although results indicated that most students and parents concurred that students with learning disabilities would need more support in their postschool lives than would young adults from the general population, there was little agreement regarding the types of supports needed. Data further showed that, although most students and parents expected professionals from adult service agencies to assist students after graduation, these professionals were rarely involved in the transition planning process. Results are discussed in relation to the nature of postschool support needed by young adults with learning disabilities, strategies that actively involve students and parents in the development of transition plans, and procedures by which compliance with the transition planning requirements of public laws can be monitored.

Instructional content was presented differently in two introductory special education course sections. In a face-to-face (f2f) section, the instructor met with students on regularly scheduled days and times and presented content in person. In the other section, content was presented using enhanced podcasts, consisting of the instructor narrating while PowerPoint slides and other visuals were shown in flash movies that students could download from the Internet at days and times of their choosing. All other aspects of these two class sections were the same. Although data associated with student achievement and student satisfaction were slightly more favorable for the f2f section, the discrepancies may have been related to demographic differences in the student populations of the two sections. Measures of student engagement were slightly higher for the online section. Implications of findings are discussed in relation to teaching and learning in courses with large enrollments that are focused primarily on developing knowledge-based competencies.