No abstract

The sociometric standing of primary-aged learning disabled students was investigated. The setting was a sparsely populated rural area where learning disabled children were mainstrearned in an elementary school in which an "open concept" delivery of services system was in operation. The "special child" stigma was therefore assumed to be significantly reduced. The data support the findings of previous studies on handicapped and normal children; i.e..significant differences were found between the learning disabled and normal control groups on both the positive and negative questions. Further analysis revealed that the learning disabled girls were less likely to be positively chosen and more likely to be rejected than the learning disabled boys. A discussion of possible reasons for such differences is included.

The study examined gender differences in attributions for success and failure in math/science and language arts. Developmental patterns were also examined through a cross sectional design of 731 boys and 680 girls in grades four through eleven. Girls were found to have fewer adaptive attributional patterns in math/science than in language arts. While boys had more adaptive patterns in math/science than had girls, they also had more adaptive patterns for language arts patterns than for math/science. It was concluded that cross content area research should consider the student's relative perceived task difficulty.

Indexes of scatter on the WISC-R were computed for 100 severely learning disabled children. These indexes of subtest variability were significantly greater than values reported by Kaufman (1976) for children in the normal standardization sample. However, the substantial overlap in distributions between LD and normal groups suggests the inadvisability of continuing the search for a characteristic LD profile.A persistent theme in much of the diagnostic literature in the field of learning disabilities has involved an attempt to identify a set of characteristics that differentiate between normal and learning disabled children. A major assumption underlying both this research and much of the program evaluation literature is that LD children are reasonably homogeneous on many psychological variables.The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children and its revised version (Wechsler 1974) have frequently been used to attempt to identify a common profile for these children. A review of these studies reveals some minor similarities in profiles but also a great deal of variation. The problem with many of the findings is that while a profile is developed, there was no satisfactory way to compare the shape and range of scatter with normal children. Kaufman (1976) provided an analysis of the standardization sample in terms of range of scaled scores, numbers of tests deviating by three or more points from the child's own mean, and the proportion of the total sample showing three or more points between pairs of tests. The major conclusion from this work was that far more scatter exists in the standardization sample than was previously suspected. He specifically warns the diagnosticians of handicapped children not to stereotype the normal child as having a flat profile.

Causal attribution research has not systematically varied the levels or units analyzed. Therefore, generalizations are difficult to apply to diverse educational conditions and to members of an aggregated group like the Asian Americans. The present study varied level of analysis by contrasting the causal attributions between two outcomes (success and failure) and between two academic content areas (language arts/social studies and mathematics/science). Unit of analysis varied according to the Asian ethnicity of American students in six distinct groups: Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and other Southeast Asians. Subjects were 2,511 Asian Americans in grades 4 through 11 who took the Survey of Achievement Responsibility, an attribution scale. A 2 (Success or Failure Outcome) x 2 (Language Arts/Social Studies or Math/Science Content Area) x 6 (Ethnic Group) x 2 (Lunch Subsidy or No Subsidy) analysis of variance with repeated measures revealed that effort more than ability was the attributional choice in explaining academic performance. Content area induced varying attributions, such as the fact that language arts/social studies more than math/science engendered effortful work. The six Asian American groups had distinctive attributional profiles. Complex data patterns demonstrate the need for less generalized motivational descriptions of "Asian Americans" in the aggregate and more specific attention to the unique patterns of each ethnic group.

Fifty middle class and 50 lower class Negro kindergarten boys were administered a battery of eight instruments designed to assess specific information processing abilities. An analysis of 19 variables produced five reasonably meaningful components, with a general language ability component the most significant. When class groups were compared, this component discriminated most significantly between the groups. Implications for educational definition, diagnosis, and program planning are discussed.

This study factor analyzed the correlation matrices of a number of studies involving the ITPA. All of the correlation matrices were analyzed on the same program using the same criteria to examine trends between studies. More factors tended to appear as chronological age increased. Although there was little consistency of factor structure between age groups, analysis of three groups at the same age level produced a reasonable amount of consistency. Analysis of the channel, level, and process dimensions of the ITPA revealed that channel differentiation was best achieved for all age levels. For age groups above CA 6–0, it appears that the ITPA was moderately successful in assessing some of the dimensions for which it was intended.

The Beery Developmental Test of Visual-MotorIntegration was used in a reliability study with elementary school children. The results indicate sufficient scorer reliability and stability to merit its use with young children.Form-copying has long been considered a valid measure of perceptual-motor development in children. This fact is reflected in the importance of this kind of performance in diagnostic batteries used with children. The BenderGestalt Test (1938) has been the most popular instrument in this area. However, despite extensive clinical research, the usefulness of this test is somewhat limited for the school psychologist because it requires time-consuming individual administration and interpretation.Other efforts to define more precisely the import and genetic course of form-copying have led to the development of another test of this behavior. The Beery Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration (1967) combines the vast research in this area with innovation in test design. The VMI presents a series of 24 designs in booklet form. The original placement of the design is age-graded, and was determined by normative studies with groups of children from age 3 to 14. The booklet can be administered equally well individually or in groups. Administration and scoring procedures are explicit, so that a classroom teacher can perform either 48 task. The provision of a large number of items, together with the option of group administration, constitute signal advantages of this test of form-copying over traditional clinical tests. Clear and simple scoring criteria allow both clinical and quantitative interpretation of the child's performance.The study reported here investigated the test-retest and split-half reliability of the VMI with classes of second, fourth, and sixth grade children. The children were pupils in a suburban school district of a large midwestern city. The test-retest interval was one week. The test was administered in group form to one class at each grade level. There were 31 2nd graders, 25 4th-graders, and 27 6th-graders in the sample.The test-retest correlations for the three grades and the total for all grades indicate that the test possesses sufficient reliability to be useful with children in the elementary grades (Table I). There are no significant differences in the reliability of the test between boys and girls.The inter-scorer reliability coefficients were determined when the test was scored by two independent scorers (Table II). The scoring was done by teachers and advanced undergraduate students who were studying for their teaching certificates. This procedure was used to obtain reliability data which would be representative of the test's use by teachers. The data indicate