As teacher quality becomes a central issue in discussions of children's literacy, both researchers and policy makers alike express increasing concern with how teachers structure and allocate their lesson time for literacy-related activities as well as with what they know about reading development, processes, and pedagogy. The authors examined the…

Discusses how the Guckenberger v Boston University case illustrates the interaction of the psychometrics of ability differences with the concept of learning disability and with the sociopolitics of schooling and society. Urges a more inclusive definition of learning disability which abandons aptitude-achievement discrepancy requirements and a more…

Discusses the barriers that impede special education teachers from adopting research findings in the field of special education. The lack of communication between educators and researchers, the need to teach teachers how to evaluate research using scientific criteria, and teacher resistance to change are discussed. (CR)

Reactions to H. Lee Swanson's paper "Toward a Metatheory of Learning Disabilities" are outlined, and his arguments are applied to reading disabilities, focusing on the importance of the scientific attitude, the misuse of ecological validity, interpretation of Thomas Kuhn's work, modularity and reading disability, and scientific progress toward a…

In response to Coles (EC 220 146) the author outlines points of agreement and identifies points of divergence including Coles' confusion of ordinary poor reading with true dyslexia, the role of phonological processes, and philosophy of science issues concerning Coles' alternative interactivity theory. (DB)

The paper develops the phonological-core variable difference model to conceptualize differences between dyslexic and other poor readers. The model highlights the importance of viewing the concept of dyslexia as the outcome of the application of an arbitrary criterion in a continuous distribution. (Author/DB)

The article summarizes the four preceding articles on specific reading disability and emphasizes the presence of variability in all discussions of the topic. (DB)

The importance of word decoding in accounting for individual differences in reading comprehension is discussed. Research on individual differences in the cognitive processes that mediate word decoding is reviewed. (Author)

The literature on individual differences in cognitive processes that operate at the text level is reviewed. Poor readers display comprehension deficits independent of word-decoding skill, due to deficient syntactic abilities and to more general metacognitive strategies. The general conclusions from this review and from Part One (ED 150 706) are…

This paper urges a deeper consideration of the role of psychometrically defined intelligence in the operationalization of aptitude/achievement discrepancies inherent in most definitions of learning disability. It proposes a new disability, dysrationalia, the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence. (DB)

This paper responds to reactions to the proposal of a new learning disability, dysrationalia, by suggesting that alternative ideas of "practical intelligence" are equally inexact, that rationality must be defined broadly, and that epistemological relativism can be carried too far. (DB)

This commentary supports Linda Siegel's challenge to the learning disabilities field (in EC221505) to produce data indicating that dyslexic readers differ from other poor readers in their cognitive processing, educational prognosis, and response to treatment. The commentary also points out that the existence of Matthew effects reinforces Siegel's…