The concept o f learning disabilities in ctiildhood and youth is based on a confusion of ideas and understandings, and for the newcomer to the problem, it is often difficult to identify myths and unfounded concepts from the realities. The author has attempted to identify a number of misconceptions and to counterbalance these with statements based on historical, research, or theoretical facts. He deals with such matters as the issue of definition of the field, focus of child population included in the concept of learning disability, personnel preparation, and integration of these cliildren into regular grades.The issue of learning disabilities in childhood and youth is one of the more interesting phenomena that have occurred in education. Its history has been well documented on more than one occasion so that no further reference will be made to it here (Hallahan & Cruickshank 1973, Wiederholt 1974. The field is fraught with misconceptions. It is ill-defined in the minds o f most educators and psychologists; certainly it is not understood by physicians,' who have only recently bccome interested in the'problem. Its implications are neither understood nor adequately conceptualized by the majority of school administrators. The hopes of parents are not being realized because of these facts. It is essential that serious thought be given t o this mattcr and that more appropriate directions be initiated.A recent volume indicates that the field of learning disabilities emerged coincident t o the development by Kirk of the Illinois Test o f Psycholinguistic Abilities (Haring 1974). This is the first myth which should be considered. Kirk's work, uniquely important, nonetheless had antecedents which he recognizes. The ITPA itself is based on the earlier conceptual framework of Osgood, but the additional and perhaps still earlier stimulus for whatever Kirk did in the ITPA came, he says, from personal contact with Ruth Monroe in Chicago and later from Strauss, particularly when he and Kirk were both working in Wisconsin. A still earlier stimulation of Kirk's direction undoubtedly came from his direct association with, and exposure to, both Strauss and Werner in Michigan. There is n o effort here to minimize the work of Kirk. The fact of the matter is that he and several others in various institutional and university settings were working simultaneously along somewhat similar lines. With the exception of Monroe and Grace Fernald, t o whom Kirk also gives credit for the stimulation of his thinking, most of these investigators were, directly or indirectly, his colleagues a t an i n s t i t u t i o n a l setting in Michigan: Newell Kephart, Sidney Bijou, Bluma Weiner, William C r u i c k s h a n k , R u t h M e l c h e r Patterson, Charlotte Phileo, and others who followed.The reality of this situation is that Kirk was one among several who moved t o understand the complexities of children who were later t o be called learning disabled. Kirk took the route
The author, who for more than three decades has been associated with the field presently called “learning disabilities,” examines some of the issues coincident to its unprecendented rapid growth. The field is seen as complex and confused both from the point of view of theory and personnel. Among numerous problems relating to an appropriate conceptualization of the field, three are selected for emphasis: (1) failure to adequately operationally define “learning disability”; (2) the lack of qualified college professors, and, in the absence of quality personnel, the lack of quality programs for children and parent involvement; (3) the threat of class action suits reminiscent of those which are current in the education of retarded children. In combination, these three factors constitute significant hurdles to the education essential for children with specific learning disabilities.
PROBLEMThe Bender-Gestalt Test has often been used as a means of diagnosing the existence of cortical involvement. Until the development of more objective scoring criteria by Pascal and Suttell(2), however, the evaluation of such protocols has depended solely upon the skill of the clinician. From a research point of view it is still a question as to what types and degrees of cortical involvement are detectable through the use of this instrument. The present study is intended to give a partial answer to this question. METHOD A group of twenty-five institutionalized idiopathic epileptic children was matched with a group of twenty-five institutionalized non-convulsive chiIdren on the basis of age, sex and intelligence. Individual matching techniques were used, and the groups are highly similar in chronological age and in intelligence as measured by the 1937 Revision of the Binet Scale. No children were included in either group who suffered from uncorrectable sensory or motor defects. No children were included in the control group whose case histories indicated any evidence of possible brain damage.The Bender-Gestalt Test was administered to the fifty children according to standard procedure. Immediately following the administration of the test the protocols were scored by the examiner according to the criteria set up by Pascal and Suttell. The tests were rescored after an interval of one to two months. The t test was then applied to the total scores of the two groups and also to the configuration score.RESULTS Analysis of the total scores of the Bender-Gestalt Test through use of the t test indicates that there is no significant difference between mean scores of the two groups dealt with in this study. This would indicate that the Bender-Gestalt Test does not differentiate between the two groups on the basis of total score. I n addition to the analysis of the total score, a separate study of the configuration score was made. Results of the t test indicate that a difference between the two groups significant a t the 2% level of confidence exists. With this result in mind, it would seem that a real difference exists between the epileptic and control subjects in the placement, size, and order of the designs on the paper. Table 1 summarizes the results of the BenderGestalt Test.These results are essentially different from the results obtained on this instrument by other groups of brain damaged persons. Basing a prediction upon past re-
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