The number of students with learning disabilities (LD) who attend postsecondary education has increased steadily over the past 20 years. This study examines the contribution of internal (academic self-efficacy and attachment style) and external (social support and institutional support) factors to the adjustment and achievement of students with LDs in the academic setting. Participants were 674 students from 24 institutions of higher education in Israel. The experimental group (n = 338) consisted of students with self-reported LD, the control group (n = 336) were students who reported they did not have an LD. Our hypothesis that students with LD would report lower academic achievements and lower levels of adjustment than would students with no LD was confirmed. A further hypothesis, that internal and external factors would both be associated with adjustment and academic achievements of LD students, was confirmed by a Structural Equation Modeling Analysis. These findings emphasize the importance of social, family and environment in the success of students with LD in higher education.

Computerized training systems offer a promising new direction in the training of executive functions, in part because they can easily be designed to offer feedback to learners. Yet, feedback is a double-edged sword, serving a positive motivational role while at the same time carrying the risk that learners may become dependent on the feedback they receive. The current research suggests that computerized training systems may take advantage of the motivational effects of feedback without the unwanted risk by making feedback available while not requiring trainees to access it. Specifically, we hypothesized that the mere availability of feedback would improve performance even if trainees never or almost never made use of it. We tested this hypothesis using a simple puzzle completion task, putting the focus on executive functions by instructing participants to complete each puzzle with a minimal number of rotations and moves. Two training sessions in which the availability of feedback was manipulated were followed by a transfer test and a visual perception test. The results show that the availability of feedback improved performance, in terms of the smaller number of excess rotations and moves performed during both the training sessions and the transfer task.

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