This article presents an international perspective of the proposed changes to the DSM-5 for learning disabilities (LD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) across ten countries: Australia, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We provide perspectives of the present situation for youth with LD and youth with ADHD and describe the legislation, prevalence rates, and educational systems that serve students with disabilities in the respective countries. We also present a discussion of the expected impact of the proposed changes for the diagnosis of LD and ADHD in each country.

Mainstream-school teachers are the most important assets for students with special educational needs (or diverse conditions) who hope to achieve real inclusion. However, teaching experience, attitudes, and knowledge can either promote or hinder efforts towards inclusion. A cross-cultural study was conducted to examine perceptions, knowledge, and attitudes towards inclusion in teachers from Ghana, Germany, and Spain, about intervention with special-education students enrolled in their classrooms. The participants comprised 363 teachers-156 men (43%) and 207 women (57%)from three countries (Ghana, Germany, and Spain). Of the teachers, 150 (41.3%) were from Ghana, 62 (17.1%) were from Germany, and 151 (41.6%) were from Spain. The results showed that there were significant differences in teachers' self-confidence and in the amount of personal and material resources they received from administrators and schools. In general, the Spanish teachers reported lower levels for these variables. All the teachers showed adequate levels of knowledge about instructional strategies and students' characteristics, although those from Ghana demonstrated significantly more knowledge than the others about students' characteristics. Finally, the teachers differed by country in terms of their attitudes towards inclusion, with the teachers from Spain and Germany demonstrating slightly better attitudes. They all agreed on the need for additional training as a key aspect in this regard.

The purpose of this study was to implement and evaluate a motivational intervention that consisted of explicit timing, immediate feedback through self-scoring, and display of high scores with the goal of encouraging four students with learning disabilities to write longer stories. All participants were initially very unwilling to engage in text production. An ABA reversal design was used to assess the effectiveness of the approach. Immediately after the treatment, the subjects started to write more extensive stories. However, this effect ended abruptly once the intervention was terminated. The study’s results show that, even for very reluctant students with learning disabilities, writing motivation can be significantly enhanced with relatively little effort. All the participants reported enjoying the treatment. The paper ends with a discussion of the experiment’s limitations and the practical implications of the findings.

Zusammenfassung.Bislang werden meist soziale Benachteiligungen in der Kindheit als Gründe für das Auftreten von funktionalem Analphabetismus in literalisierten Gesellschaften postuliert. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird hingegen überprüft, ob nicht auch Beeinträchtigungen in der phonologischen Informationsverarbeitung die Leseprobleme von funktionalen Analphabeten erklären können. In einem Reading Level Match Design bearbeiteten 54 funktionale Analphabeten und ebenso viele altersgleiche lesekundige Erwachsene sowie Grundschüler auf demselben Leseentwicklungsstand eine phonologische Testbatterie (phonologische Bewusstheit, verbales Arbeitsgedächtnis, Abrufgeschwindigkeit für phonologische Informationen). Analphabeten zeigten in der phonologischen Bewusstheit und im verbalen Arbeitsgedächtnis starke Defizite. Ebenfalls riefen sie phonologische Informationen deutlich langsamer ab, als aufgrund ihres Lebensalters zu erwarten gewesen wäre. Diese phonologischen Beeinträchtigungen scheinen (ähnlich wie bei Menschen mit Legasthenie und Lese-Rechtschreibstörungen) eine Ursache für die Leseprobleme der Analphabeten zu sein.

Many children with different kinds of learning problems struggle with reading. To help them combat their challenges, easy-to-implement interventions are needed. Reading racetracks have proven to be effective tools to increase sight word fluency in students with disabilities. The purpose of this single-case study was to evaluate this technique, for the first time, in a context outside of the United States. Four elementary school children with various learning difficulties received nine to twelve individual intervention sessions from one of two graduate students. The results indicated that reading fluency of 30 common two-syllable German words rose remarkably in all four participants. Even though the treatment was a little less effective for one female student, diagnosed with intellectual/developmental delays, than for the other three students, performance gains were still noteworthy. This study provides further evidence that reading racetracks are an effective practice to build fluency in children with disabilities.