Many students with learning disabilities struggle with the writing process throughout their school years. As students approach graduation, effective communication though writing becomes more critical. Writing is a skill that can directly impact the quality of life for older students preparing to graduate and progress to college, a career, or…

Research shows that educators are not prepared to address real life issues such as substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, and bullying in the classroom. Yet, students with learning disabilities remain vulnerable to each of these pressing life issues. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether the curriculum infusion (CI) model increased the…

The search for "markers", or indicators of learning disabilities, has shown that teachers can be good indicators, but literature has not shown which markers or indicators are most noticed or receiving most of teachers' attention. This investigation asked preservice teachers to describe their own first memories of students with learning…

What this author admired most about Sally Smith was the fact that she was a visionary about people and what they could accomplish. She saw more potential in a person--young or old--than anybody or even they themselves, frankly, had ever even considered possible. She was a genius at seeing the potential in people, expecting them to find it in…

Although a great deal of the recent professional literature in the field of learning disabilities has been devoted to the topic of inclusion, relatively little is known about special education teachers' experiences and how inclusion impacts their professional lives and the lives of students in unanticipated ways. To investigate these issues, we…

A focus group of 5 general education schoolteachers from one rural middle school in Hawaii was conducted to investigate their perspectives on the unintended effects of including students with learning disabilities. The general education teachers were asked how the inclusion of students with learning disabilities had impacted (a) their professional…

This study investigated the perspectives of high school students with learning disabilities on co-teaching. Two focus groups were conducted at two high schools in southern California, involving 10 students with learning disabilities. Guiding questions were used to seek students' perceptions on how participation in co-taught general education…

The perspectives of general and special education teacher educators, who are nationally recognized for their work in the areas of learning disabilities, inclusive education, and teacher education, were explored. Study participants were asked to reveal how the inclusion of students with learning disabilities has impacted their professional lives in…

A focus group with nine university professionals from two large Midwestern universities was conducted to investigate their perceptions regarding the unexpected impact of increasing numbers of students with learning disabilities attending college. Participants consisted of six faculty members, two directors of Offices of Student Disability…

In this article, we summarize the findings from eight separate focus group studies, conducted with various stakeholders--special education teachers, general education teachers, administrators, school psychologists, students with learning disabilities, parents of students with learning disabilities, teacher educators, and higher education faculty…

The objectives of this study were twofold: (a) based on Bandura's theoretical framework, develop a four scale instrument to assess specifically general educators' teaching efficacy beliefs (TEB) concerning students with learning disabilities (Teacher Efficacy for the Inclusion of Students with Learning Disabilities Scale, TEISLDS), and (b) employ…

The purpose of this study was to investigate concordance of reports of hyperactive and distractible behavior from three different sources: parents, teachers, and the child, using two different instruments, the ADHD Rating Scale and the Gordon Diagnostic System (GDS). The incidence rate of attentional problems that any of the sources reported in…

Individuals with learning disabilities are attending postsecondary institutions in rapidly growing numbers. However, they often encounter a variety of difficulties on campus, both in and out of the college classroom. One potentially fruitful avenue for improving the quality of the college experience for students with learning disabilities is to…

Interviews with 16 general special education teachers from the Chicago area were conducted in order to obtain information on their views and experiences with collaboration. An open-ended questionnaire consisting of nine items was utilized during the interviews, which required the participants to give multiple sentence responses to each question.…

This article considers how good teaching in general education classes can be good intervention for students with learning disabilities. It urges combining Big-S Science (the educational research literature) with little-s science (a teacher's study of what works in his/her classroom). It stresses the teacher's beliefs about students with…