Barbara K. Keogh

Early Detection of Learning Problems: Questions, Cautions, and Guidelines.

Assumptions underlying programs of early identification of young children viewed as educationally “at risk” are reviewed in terms of the research literature relevant to questions of validity of identifying or screening techniques, implications of recognition for remediation, and possible compounding negative effects of early identification. Guidelines for development and implementation of programs of early detection are proposed. Recommendations include emphasis upon techniques which are short term and educationally oriented and which are based on functional aspects of childrens behavior in classroom settings.

Weaving Interventions into the Fabric of Everyday Life: An Approach to Family Assessment.

In response to legislative mandates, the focus in early childhood special education has shifted from the child to the child in the context of the family. This shift has major implications for assessment as well as for intervention. In this article we describe an ecocultural approach for assessing families of young children with developmental problems. It is an approach that has grown out of empirical work and that we believe has clinical utility in designing interventions for young children and their families.

Hyperactivity and Learning Disorders: Review and Speculation

Research on hyperactive children was reviewed in order to define and clarify relationships and interactions between hypractivity and learning disorders. Despite agreement on maladaptive social and behavioral characteristics associated with hyperactivity, findings specifying the nature of educational deficits are inconsistent and inconclusive. Three hypotheses are proposed to explain learning problems of hyperactive children. The first represents the medical-neurological syndrome explanation; the second suggests that activity disrupts attention and the information acquisition stages of learning; the third implicates impulsivity in decsion making. Although neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive, the hypotheses differ in remedial and treatment implications. Evidence is reviewed under each hypothesis.

Field Dependence, Impulsivity, and Learning Disabilities

Twenty-seven boys with serious learning and behavioral disorders and 25 boys with moderate learning problems were evaluated in terms of constructs of “field dependence-independence” and “reflection-impulsivity” using a portable rod and frame test, a pattern walking test, and the Matching Familiar Figures Test. Compared to available normative data for normal-achieving children, LD boys were found to be highly field dependent; extreme LD boys were also impulsive. Field dependence associated with rapid response rate appears incompatible with success in most educational tasks. Analysis of childrens perceptual and cognitive styles is proposed as a tentative but promising approach to understanding the educational problems of LD children.

Learn to Labor and to Wait Attentional Problems of Children with Learning Disorders

Focused on the relationship between attentional problems and learning disorders, this paper contains a brief review of background theory and evidence, and proposes an analysis of attentional problems which takes into account three partially independent but interactive aspects of attention: coming to attention, decision making, and maintaining attention. Diagnostic and remedial implications of this three-dimensional approach are discussed, with emphasis on implications for working with children in the school setting.

Improving Services for Problem Learners Rethinking and Restructuring

The proposed merger of special and regular education is analyzed relative to two issues: the reality of conditions of mild handicap, and the capability of the regular education system to serve all pupils effectively. It is argued that study of individual differences, one major component of a needed research agenda, must be directed at determining the nature and expression of instructionally relevant individual differences within and across conditions of problem and nonproblem learning. Similarly, study of program models must address efficacy across conditions and sites. It is concluded that conditions necessary for restructuring include a stable and coherent policy of support for research and evaluation, the study of programs as well as of individuals, and recognition of the need for multiple and competing program models.

Visuo-Motor Ability for School Prediction: A Seven-Year Study:

The relationship of visuo-motor ability and school achievement over the 7-yr. elementary school period was examined using a longitudinal paradigm in which data were collected on the same 73 children at kindergarten, Grades 3 and 6. Visuo-motor performance was measured by the Bender-Gestalt, school achievement by standard achievement tests. Analyses determined patterns of visuo-motor performance over the age span, and considered the predictive and diagnostic utility of the Bender for school achievement. Results suggest that the kindergarten Bender is a surprisingly useful predictor of educational achievement in the upper elementary school grades.

Children with Developmental Delays Twenty Years Later: Where Are They? How Are They?.

Data from parents and young adults were collected as part of a 20-year follow-up of children with developmental delays who had been identified at age 3 years. The young adults and their parents provided information through questionnaires and personal interviews. Findings documented a broad range of outcomes, with some young adults leading independent and productive lives, whereas the majority were un- or underemployed, living with and financially dependent upon their families, and socially isolated. Three types of parent-young adult relationships were identified. For both parents and young adults, IQ was significantly and negatively related to perceived life satisfaction.

Relationship of Temperament to Preschoolers' Interactions with Peers and Teachers

Two groups of preschool children (9 handicapped, 9 nonhandicapped) were observed, with the focus on frequency of interactions with teachers and peers. Teachers rated temperaments of each child, using a derivation of the Thomas and Chess Teacher Temperament Scale, producing scores on task orientation, personal-social flexibility, and reactivity. Teachers rated handicapped children (compared with nonhandicapped) as low in task orientation and flexibility, and as underreactive or overreactive. For both groups of children, positive temperament patterns were related to frequency of interactions with peers—and for nonhandicapped children, to frequency of child-teacher interactions. Teachers interacted more with those handicapped children with negative than with positive temperament profiles.

MARKER VARIABLES: A SEARCH FOR COMPARABILITY AND GENERALIZABILITY IN THE FIELD OF LEARNING DISABILITIES1

The learning disability field has been plagued by unclear definitional criteria resulting in inconsistencies and confusion regarding research findings and program effects. The concept of marker variables as presented by Keogh et al. may be a means of guiding research and comparing research results. Marker variables may be thought of as a set of core variables which are collected in common by those conducting research within a given field. The identification and adoption of a systematic, cooperative approach to the documentation of research and intervention with learning disabled students would aid in the comparability and generalizability of the findings. This article discusses the concept of marker variables as they are being applied to the learning disability field in the UCLA Marker Variable Project.