This overview offers a perspective on the distinguishing characteristics, past and present, of the learning disabilities field in the United States. The discussion focuses on why an advocacy movement has been necessary and emphasizes the need to establish clinical and scientific validation of learning disabilities, to preserve the hard-won…

This response to a paper by Linda Siegel (EC221505) on the relationship between Intelligence Quotient and learning disabilities addresses the differences between classification and identification, limitations in Siegel's conceptualization of intelligence, and the representation of the language and learning domains subsumed within the learning…