LD Children's Regular Classroom Behavior before and after Identification and Placement

Abstract

Regular classroom behavior and teacher ratings of learning disabled (LD), low average (LA), and average (AV) students were compared before and after LD placement in resource. Results showed no Preplacement differences in regular classroom behavior between LD students and their peers. At Postplacement, LD children spent significantly less time doing schoolwork and more time looking around than AV students; also, they initiated more interactions with the regular classroom teacher than LA or AV students. Regular classroom teachers rated the LD students less favorably than LA and AV students at both Pre- and Postplacement. However, according to the observational data, LD maladaptive behavior patterns appeared only at Postplacement. It was hypothesized that these patterns reflect cross-setting generalization between resource and regular classrooms.