Learning Disabilities and Reading Disorders

Abstract

The secondary level, learning disabilities literature offers limited hard data on learning disabled adolescents' reading behaviors and pedagogical programming that meet these students' reading needs. The literature supports the view that reading disorders, specifically comprehension problems, rank high on the list of academic deficiencies but provide little information delineating specific behavioral manifestations. Reviewing the extant literature, one finds a host of variables that researchers have hypothesized contribute to reading problems and a number of pedagogical strategies they recommend to develop appropriate reading skills. Unfortunately, the hard data necessary to validate these investigators' positions either are not included or are contaminated by the researchers' use of faulty methodological procedures. Because the adolescent learning disabled population and resultant instructional programs have mushroomed in recent years, it is imperative that the learning disabilities field support and provide impetus for future secondary level research.