This article features the results of a survey of 42 state departments of education regarding their respective definitions of learning disabilities and attempts to operationalize them. A conceptual framework consisting of 15 components is presented as a vehicle for analyzing LD definitions. The definitions from the state departments were examined and discussed in terms of those components. The results revealed trends and variations in the state definitions and these are highlighted by a discussion of the approaches used in the states of Washington and Florida to operationalize the LD definition. The use of the conceptual framework and a study of functional relationships between behavior and environment are two of the procedures recommended to enhance the development of an acceptable definition of LD.

We investigated the influence of teacher wait-time and intertrial interval durations on the performance of 4 multiply handicapped students during instruction in 10 skills. Four experimental conditions were evaluated: long wait-time and long intertrial interval, long wait-time and short intertrial interval, short wait-time and long intertrial interval, and short wait-time and short intertrial interval. Instructors attempted to keep short intervals as close as possible to 1 s and long intervals as close as possible to 10 s for both variables. Results showed that student performance was superior under the long wait-time conditions irrespective of the length of the intertrial interval.

The present study compared two procedures used in identifying students as “at risk” for learning problems. One procedure was a standardized norm referenced assessment represented by the Metropolitan Readiness Test and the Metropolitan Achievement Test. The other test procedure was a variation of the Curriculum-Based Assessment (CBA), which used frequency to measure samples of academic behavior. Tests were administered to 144 kindergarten and 142 first-grade children. Although the two procedures were comparable in identifying high-risk students, they differed substantially in time, effort, and cost. These differences might be important for school districts with limited personnel and funds.

Reading comprehension may be defined as a type of intraverbal responding. Only a few studies have reported the effects of the rate and inflection of oral reading performances on this class of intraverbals. In the present study the effects of four conditions; low reading rates (40 to 60 words per minute), with and without inflection, and high reading rates (150 to 200 words per minute), with and without inflection, were studied using six subjects. Two of the subjects were of high school age, reading below grade level, and four were typical third grade students, reading on grade level. The results indicated that the combination of high oral reading rate with inflection, a condition approximating conversational speech, increased both the accuracy and speed of intraverbal responding (comprehension), more than any other combination of variables. A second experiment was conducted which systematically replicated the findings across reading levels, reading passage content, settings, and subjects.

Potential users of Keller's personalized college classroom method might find it impractical to provide student proctors from the ranks of those who had previously mastered the course material. An alternative is to let currently enrolled students proctor and tutor each other. Such a method imposes the burden of showing that its effectiveness is not a function of (1) student collaboration or (2) the effects of "practice" received by students who listen to the performance of others before their own performance. The present study compared students proctored by previously trained students (Control) with students who received proctoring from classmates (Experimental). Experimental group performance was superior to Control group performance. The effects of "practice" and collaboration were ruled out as determinants of the difference between groups. It is hypothesized that the superior performance of the Experimental students was related to their activities as proctors.