Tamara Williams- Annotated Bibliography- Chapter 15
Reis, S.M., McGuire, J.M. & Neu, T.W. (2000). Compensation Strategies Used by High-Ability Students with
Learning Disabilities who Succeed in College. Gifted Child Quarterly, 44(2), 123-134.
Sally M. Reis is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor at the University of Connecticut. She currently serves
as the Principal Investigator for the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. Her research interests
include students with disabilities, gifted females, and culturally and linguistically diverse talented students.
Joan M. McGuire is a Professor Emeritia and Senior Research Scholar in the Center on Postsecondary Education
and Disability at the University of Connecticut. Her areas of expertise include special education transitioning,
learning disabilities, and postsecondary students with learning disabilities.
Terry W. Neu serves as the Vice President of the Association for the Education of Gifted Underachieving Students
and as a faculty member of Sacred Heart University. He is the co-author of Helping Boys Succeed in School: A
Practical Guide for Parents and Teachers. He has completed research in the areas of gifted students with
disabilities, teaching strategies for gifted students with disabilities, and the modification of the classroom
environments for gifted students with other exceptionalities.
The article written by Reis, McGuire, and Neu is directed towards readers who are interested in postsecondary
high-ability students who also have learning disabilities. The authors began the article by pointing to an increased
number of high-ability students with learning disabilities who have enrolled in postsecondary school settings.
While there has been little research in the area, the authors pointed to several strategies that successful
postsecondary students with disabilities used in order to be successful students. Some of the strategies mentioned
included metacognition, self-efficacy, self-monitoring, and compensation strategies (Reis, McGuire & Neu, 2000).
Citing a case study of twelve postsecondary students who were considered highly-able and learning disabled, as
well as pointing to the research of Crux, the authors described compensation strategies as the study strategies,
cognitive strategies, compensatory supports, and environmental accommodations that high-ability students with
learning disabilities have used to be academically successful in postsecondary educational settings. According to
the article, study strategies included note-taking strategies, time management, test-taking strategies, library skills,
and self-advocacy, monitoring, and organizational skills. With regards to the cognitive/learning strategies, high
ability students with disabilities used memorization strategies such as mnemonics, flash cards, and chunking
information. Environmental accommodations that the authors mentioned included extended test-taking time and
less-distracting testing environments. Other compensation supports that high-ability postsecondary students who
had learning disabilities used included books on tape, word processing, and computer usage (Reis, McGuire &
Neu, 2000).
Based on the case studies and other research citing in the article, the conclusion can be made that high-ability
students who also have learning disabilities can be successful in postsecondary settings through the use of various
compensation strategies mentioned above. The authors also noted that while the focus at the postsecondary level
has been learning how to compensate for what students need in order to be successful, programs for learning
disabled students at the elementary and secondary level have been more focused on remediation and deficits (Reis,
McGuire & Neu, 2000). Hence if we are to help students move to the postsecondary level of schooling and be
successful in these situations, it behooves us to focus on their talents through the use of compensation strategies
instead of focusing on their deficits (p. 132).
I found this article interesting because I have never really given a lot of thought about how students with
disabilities are successful at the postsecondary level. Reading this article made me think about Donna Y. Ford and
the concept of deficit thinking, which is to the detriment of the students that we teach. I agree that we should help
students learn and employ compensation strategies that will focus on their talents and help them be successful
instead of focusing on what they cannot do. Ironically, some of the very compensation strategies mentioned in the
article are some of the things that I have done which have contributed to my success at the postsecondary level.