A telephone survey was conducted to describe the incidence of learning disorders as reported by parents of children who had received surgical treatment for serous otitis media. Contrary to expectation, only 13 percent of the 90 children were enrolled in special education. (Author/CL)

A review and analysis of current research on subtypes of learning-disabled children argues against a "single syndrome" theory of learning disability and demonstrates the feasibility of creating more homogeneous diagnostic groups within this broad and ill-defined category of exceptional children. (Author/CL)

Three advantages in automating special education information management (accuracy, speed, new information) are noted, and five misconceptions (regarding costs, need for monitoring, and system independence) are revealed. (CL)

The author cites lack of standards for retaining students despite increased advocacy of the procedure, and suggests that learning disabled students would gain very little by retention. (CL)

A pilot study in which four postsecondary students with learning problems participated in sessions modeled after R. Feuerstein's theory of cognitive modifiability (instrumental enrichment) indicated the potential power of the Feuerstein method to improve learning disabled students' cognitive skills. (CL)

A method for calculating "standardized" grade equivalents for learning disabled students is criticized because it recreates some problems of the original mental age concept and has little to offer teachers or diagnostic personnel. (Author/CL)

When a contingent imitation and modeling procedure was used with a learning disabled eight-year-old, results indicated significant improvement in the number of correctly spelled words. On a transfer test, performance was slightly improved over pretest performance. However, analysis of error quality revealed substantial improvement in ability.…

Words were taught, using picture cues and no-picture cues, to four elementary learning disabled students. Results in three of four cases indicated that illustrations were related to lower reading performance rates, leading to a conclusion that illustrations interfere with the acquisition of new words in isolation by disabled readers. (Author/CL)

Of 223 children who were coded as buy-a-year (BAY), overplaced (OP), or traditional (TR) based on their Gesell placement status, there were no significant differences between TR, BAY, or OP children on referrals or classification or on receipt of speech and language service, remedial reading, remedial math, or counseling. (Author/CL)

While 16 learning disabled (LD) students (8-12 years old) with word recognition deficiencies did not differ from control Ss at the encoding stage of word recognition, LD Ss required significantly more processing time for memory search. (Author/CL)

Cognitive performance asymmetries in favor of functions attributed to the right cerebral hemisphere are reported for 105 out of 108 children to a clinic for reading difficulties. Results suggest that reading disabled children are homogeneous with at least the right/left asymmetry aspect of their cognitive profile. (Author/CL)

Learning disabled children with word-finding problems manifested significantly more errors, secondary characteristics, longer response times, as well as unique substitution types, while learning disabled children without word-finding problems performed similarly to their normal peers. (Author/CL)

Results of a study involving 14 learning disabled students show that self-monitoring procedures are readily adaptable for use by learning disabled pupils in the regular classroom setting and that using self-monitoring procedures correctly is an important variable to consider when implementing them. (Author/CL)

A microcomputer program features the "Diagnostic Evaluation of Writing Skills" (DEWS), in which 41 criteria are provided representing most common types of errors. An evaluation of DEW'S diagnostic ability revealed its value as a means of selecting students in need of special remediation. (CL)

Among four-year groups of children in a school system (266 girls, 284 boys), 4 percent had a reading disability and 2.7 percent were "slow learners." Reading disabled boys tended to be later born in their families. Lower reading scores were associated with hot birth month temperatures for all socioeconomic groups. (Author/CL)