Does special education improve academic outcomes for students with disabilities? There is surprisingly little evidence to guide policy and answer this question. This paper provides an answer for the largest disability group, students with learning disabilities. The researchers used data from the New York City schools to track the academic performance of more than 44,000 students with learning disabilities over seven years. Test scores for students with learning disabilities improve after they are classified into special education, and the gains are greatest for students who entered special education before they reached middle school. Overall, students who began special education services in grades 4 and 5 "were more likely to be placed, and remain, in less restrictive service settings" than students who began later, the researchers found. The findings suggest that support services that help students remain in the general education classrooms may be particularly effective for students with learning disabilities.

Myths about learning disabilities rob many of their potential to succeed and contribute in school and in the workplace. This white paper states that with appropriate intervention and support, all children, including those with learning disabilities, can have the tools and resources they need to live their best possible lives. This will result in many more individuals with learning disabilities acquiring the adaptive skills needed to seamlessly integrate their use of assistive technology and other supports into the performance of their jobs.

This report summarizes the latest facts, figures, and information about individuals with learning disabilities in the U.S. The report focuses on six key areas: understanding learning and attention issues; identifying struggling students; supporting academic success; social, emotional, and behavioral challenges; transitioning to life after high school; and recommended policy changes. The report also includes state snapshots that highlight key data points and comparisons to national averages in areas such as inclusion in general education classrooms, disciplinary incidents and dropout rates for students with learning and attention issues.

This research article looked the effectiveness of an assistive technology tool, the Livescribe Pen (LSP), with an elementary student identified with dyslexia over a one-year study with teachers, parent, and child. While the LSP was primarily utilized for curriculum accessibility and an audio tool to promote academic independence, the study's findings reveal its impact as an assistive technology on both academic successes for children with disabilities as well as non-academic gains. These included an increase in independence, more time for social activities, and the ability to develop strategies for homework success. Most importantly, the academic team and the parent reported a sense of higher aspirations for this student; ones they had not thought possible previously. Finally, the study revealed two elements critically important for students with disabilities. Those are the importance of fostering communities of support and the importance of self-determination.

This study suggests that people with the reading disability dyslexia may have brain differences that are surprisingly wide-ranging. Using specialized brain imaging, scientists found that adults and children with dyslexia showed less ability to "adapt" to sensory information compared to people without the disorder. And the differences were seen not only in the brain's response to written words, which would be expected. People with dyslexia also showed less adaptability in response to pictures of faces and objects. That suggests they have "deficits" that are more general, across the whole brain, said study lead author Tyler Perrachione. He's an assistant professor of speech, hearing and language sciences at Boston University. The findings offer clues to the root causes of dyslexia.

The subjects were the 414 participants comprising the Connecticut Longitudinal Study, a sample survey cohort, assessed yearly from 1st to 12th grade on measures of reading and IQ. Statistical analysis employed longitudinal models based on growth curves and multiple groups. Results from the study indicated that as early as first grade, compared with typical readers, dyslexic readers had lower reading scores and verbal IQ, and their trajectories over time never converge with those of typical readers. Researchers concluded that the achievement gap between typical and dyslexic readers is evident as early as first grade, and this gap persists into adolescence. These findings provide strong evidence and impetus for early identification of and intervention for young children at risk for dyslexia. Implementing effective reading programs as early as kindergarten or even preschool offers the potential to close the achievement gap.

The simple view of reading highlights the importance of two primary components which account for individual differences in reading comprehension across development: word recognition (i.e., decoding) and listening comprehension. This paper reviews evidence showing that listening comprehension becomes the dominating influence on reading comprehension starting even in the elementary grades. It also highlights a growing number of children who fail to develop adequate reading comprehension skills, primarily due to deficient listening comprehension skills (i.e., poor comprehenders). Finally we discuss key language influences on listening comprehension for consideration during assessment and treatment of reading disabilities.

About 2.4 million children across the nation have been diagnosed with learning disabilities — but how successful is the U.S. education system in teaching these students to read? This new report provides a far-reaching overview of the history and progress in understanding and meeting the needs of children with dyslexia, as well as the persisting challenges that must be overcome, to ensure that all students can read proficiently by the third grade. The report also highlights best practices and examples of solutions that are already working in communities. Based on interviews with nearly 30 experts, the report includes a collection of recommended actions for advancing this movement. See Executive Summary.

This joint statement of pediatric ophthalmologists and pediatricians concerned with learning disabilities states: most experts believe that dyslexia is a language based disorder. Vision problems can interfere with the process of learning; however, vision problems are not the cause of primary dyslexia or learning disabilities. Scientific evidence does not support the efficacy of eye exercises, behavioral vision therapy, or special tinted filters or lenses for improving the long-term educational performance in these complex pediatric neurocognitive conditions. Diagnostic and treatment approaches that lack scientific evidence of efficacy, including eye exercises, behavioral vision therapy, or special tinted filters or lenses, are not endorsed and should not be recommended.

For the first time, researchers have shown that the brains of dyslexic children can be rewired — after undergoing intensive remediation training — to function more like those found in normal readers.

This study investigated whether improved fluency and comprehension across different stories in repeated reading depend on the degree of word overlap among passages and whether repeated reading is more effective than an equivalent amount of nonrepetitive reading. Non-fluent, learning disabled students read passages presented and timed by a computer under three different conditions. Results suggest that over short periods of time, increases in reading speed with the repeated reading method depend on the amount of shared words among stories, and that if stories have few shared words, repeated reading is not more effective for improving speed than an equivalent amount of nonrepetitive reading.