Moderate Learning Disabled Children in

Early versus Late Elementary Grade Levels

For many years now, there has been an increase of interest for the welfare of learning disabled children and their place in the normal classroom se

tting. The attempt to reintegrate special education students with learning disabilities has been a popular subject among the special education and research community (Shinn, Powell-Smith, Good, & Baker, 1997). The strive to create inclusion programs, however, has not just been a recent issue among these professionals. The movement began in 1975 when the Education of the Handicapped Act (now called The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) was created to develop programs across the United States. It's basic requirements were: (a) to make sure that all handicapped children (in private and public schools) were educated with non handicapped children as much as possible, and (b) that if handicapped children must be removed from the regular education environment, it must only be done if the special education children cannot achieve satisfactorily in the normal classroom with the help of special aides and services that can be provided (Aerfsky, 1995; Brown, 1997). Because of this movement, a growing number of students with moderate learning disabilities are being educated and overcoming their learning disability in general education classrooms (Logan & Malone, 1998).

Martson, D. (1996). A comparison of inclusion only, pull-out only, and combined service models for students with mild disabilities. The Journal of Special Education, 30 (2), 121-132.

Scanlon, D., Deshler, D. D., Schumaker, J. B. (1996). Can a strategy be taught and learned in secondary inclusive classrooms? Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 11 (1), 41-57.

After the children had been diagnosed by the school board as learning disabled, the children were then given the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement-Revised to measure the students initial standing at the beginning of the semester. Because the School Board has different forms of each test for each grade level, a different form of the test was used at the end of the semester to detect for any difference in the scores. These achievement tests are standard Jefferson Parish School Board tests that are used by the schools to see how well the learning disabled students are performing in school, but are usually only given once a year in May. These tests consist of 200 questions and are given over a two-day period. The tests cover five subjects and contain 40 questions for each different subject. The five subjects that are used to test achievement are as follows: reading comprehension, English and grammar skills, math, science, and social studies. The tests are scored on a 200-point scale with each question being worth one point each. If a student scores a 100 or below on these achievement tests, the child is considered as having a learning disability.

American Psychological Association. (1994). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.

Shinn, M. R., Powell-Smith, K. A., Good, R. H., Baker, S. (1997). The effects of reintegration into general education reading instructions for students with mild disabilities. Exceptional Children, 64 (1), 59-79.

Aerfsky, F. (1995). Inclusion Confusion: A guide to educating students with exceptional needs. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin press.

Some common words found in the essay are:
School Board, Design Procedure, INSERT TABLES, Logan Malone, Palombaro Wassel, McCormick Becker, United It's, , Tests Achievement-Revised, Cohen Forgan, learning disabled, learning disabilities, learning disabled students, disabled students, learning disabled children, disabled children, special education, normal classroom, school board, beginning semester, moderate learning, 30 students, beginning semester inclusion, american psychological association, logan malone 1998,
Approximate Word count = 2195
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)