Individual Diagnosis and Remediation of Educational Handicaps Manifested by Learning Disabled Children

Abstract

During the last decade, professionals in the area of learning disabilities have become increasingly aware that in some instances it may not suffice to use diagnostic data obtained from standardized tests to design or select the most appropriate clinical teaching strategy for each educationally handicapped child. As a possible solution to this problem, a new conceptual-methodological approach, known as the method of equivalence, is introduced. When used with existing diagnostic test instruments, this technique will enable the professional to specify the nature of educational handicaps in precise terms and also to suggest the use of the most appropriate clinical teaching strategy. The usefulness of this conceptual-methodological approach for LD is supported by recently obtained experimental findings using the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception.

Predicting Success and Failure of Learning Disabled Children on Academic Tasks

“…Careful consideration of the procedure used will reveal that this suggestion is not totally correct. It is proposed that optimal response modes reflect the manner in which a given educationally handicapped child adapts to the demands of an academic task (Birch & Belmont, 1964;Owen et al, 1976;Braggio, Braggio, Lanier, Simpson, & Reissman, 1979;Braggio et al, 1980). In other words, an optimal response mode reflects an attempt to maximize the positive influence of strengths and to minimize the negative influence of weaknesses on a given academic task.…”

“…As recent history has shown, the LD label has helped to focus the attention of professionals and laymen on the existence of several million educationally handicapped individuals who are in need of specialized instruction (Chalfan t & Scheffelin, 1969 ;Mercer, Forgnone, &Wolking, 1976). On the other hand , the LD label has masked the presence of extreme heterogeneity manifested in the kind and degree of severity of educational handicaps (Epstein, Hallahan, &Kauffman, 1975;Owen, Braggio, & Ellen, 1976). As a result, recent attempts to effectively identify, describe, predict, and remediate these educational handicaps have met with limited success (Larsen & Hammill, 1975;Ysseldyke & Bahin, 1974;Ysseldyke & Sabatino, 1973).…”

“…As a result, recent attempts to effectively identify, describe, predict, and remediate these educational handicaps have met with limited success (Larsen & Hammill, 1975;Ysseldyke & Bahin, 1974;Ysseldyke & Sabatino, 1973). The problem is that we have not yet developed effective procedures to describe the unique strengths and weaknesses of each LD child or to predict the success and failure of these exceptional children on academic tasks (Owen et al, 1976).…”

“…For the past several years Braggio and his associates (Braggio, Braggio, Lanier, Simpson, & Reisman, 1979;Owen et al, 1976) have tried to develop a procedure that would permit an assessment of aptitude-treatment interactions of the LD deficit. To do this a version of Kluver's (1933) method of equivalence has been used with standardized diagnostic tests to determine the optimal response modes of LD children.…”

“…Even though the optimal response mode analysis and the procedure developed by Mills are derived from different assumptions (Coleman, 1962 ;Mills, 1955;Owen et al, 1976), similar procedures are used to determine the most appropriate learning method for each child. Specifically, a three-step procedure is used to determine the optimal response modes of LD children.…”