No abstract

This article presents an international perspective of the proposed changes to the DSM-5 for learning disabilities (LD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) across ten countries: Australia, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We provide perspectives of the present situation for youth with LD and youth with ADHD and describe the legislation, prevalence rates, and educational systems that serve students with disabilities in the respective countries. We also present a discussion of the expected impact of the proposed changes for the diagnosis of LD and ADHD in each country.

Direct, systematic instruction in reading, arithmetic, and daily living skills is the most effective approach to teaching students with intellectual disabilities. Basic concepts and logic suggest that special and general education cannot be equivalent. We conclude that what students are taught should be put ahead of where they are taught. Our fundamental concern is that students with intellectual disabilities be respected and be taught all they can learn.

Fifty-four general classroom teachers completed a brief demographic questionnaire and a modified version of the SBS Inventory of Teacher Social Behavior Standards and Expectations, on which they were asked to indicate whether the absence of certain adaptive behaviors or presence of certain maladaptive behaviors places a pupil at risk. Significant relationships were found between teachers' standards and expectations for behavior and their judgments of risk. Teachers judging more adaptive behaviors to be critical and more maladaptive behaviors to be unacceptable also judged the absence of more adaptive behaviors and presence of more maladaptive behaviors as placing a pupil at risk. Not all failures to exhibit critically important adaptive behavior and not all unacceptable behaviors were judged as placing a pupil at risk; teachers discriminated between behaviors not meeting their personal standards and expectations and those likely to heighten risk. Implications for research and practice were discussed.

No abstract