DISCREPANCY MODELS IN THE IDENTIFICATION OF LEARNING DISABILITY

Abstract

On April 6, 1963, Samuel A. Kirk told a parent advocacy group that “Recently, I have used the term ‘learning disability’ to describe a group of children who have disorders in development, in language, speech, reading, and associated communication skills needed for social interaction” (Kirk, 1975, p. 9). By 1968, “specific learning disability” (LD) became a federally designated category of special education (U.S. Office of Education, 1968). The formal definition offered at the time has not changed substantively and was reaffirmed in the 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act [IDEA] (Public Law 105-17) as follows: The term “specific learning disability” means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or do mathematical calculation. The term includes such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. Such term does not include a learning problem that is primarily the result of visual, hearing or motor disabilities, of mental retardation, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage (IDEA Amendments of 1997, PL105-17, 11 Stat. 37 [20 USC 1401(26)]).

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