Psychological Theory and the Study of Learning Disabilities

Studies of students with learning difficulties underscore the key role of specific forms of knowledge and skill in learning. Brown and Campione describe the new look in assessment and instruction, which they predict has potentially revolutionary implications for addressing learning disabilities. Two significant changes in conceptualizing learning difficulties are occurring. First, there is a shift from implicating a general deficit in the child to a focus on assessing specific knowledge. Second, diagnoses that are general and static are being replaced by those that are dynamic and domain specific. The authors illustrate how these fundamental changes in understanding learning relate to more specific accounts of how a child learns in a particular domain and to more informed instruction in such areas as arithmetic and reading comprehension. - The Editors