Planning LD Evaluations
Dr. Sharon Lynch
Dr. Philip Swicegood
Sam Houston State University
Hou-Met Annual Conference
November 9, 2012
• “ The field of learning disabilities has had other problems
that helped stymie its development. The most problematic
of these was our complete failure to develop operational
criteria that could be used to identify (diagnose) children
with learning disabilities and to delineate these children
form underachieving or slow learners.”
[Chamberlain (Ed.), An interview with Don
Hammill, 2010, p. 315]
Has this been true?
• “Eliminating the ‘severe discrepancy’ requirement and
authorizing the use of a process to determine how a
student responds to research-based interventions many
provide assessment information that is more helpful for
educational planning, but will probably have little impact
on the numbers of students who receive special
education.” (p. 98)
• Weintraub, F. (2005). The evolution of LD policy and
future challenges. Learning Disability Quarterly, 28(2),
97 – 99.
Will RTI solve all our problems
in LD eligibility?
• “We take it as axiomatic that no student should be
declared as having a leaning disability until we have
exhausted our instructional repertoire and been unable to
find an instructional match.” (p. 212)
• Applegate, A. J., Applegate, M. D., & Turner, J. D.
(2010). Learning disabilities or teaching disabilities?
Rethinking literacy failure. The Reading Teacher, 64(3),
211 – 213.
How do we know what is likely
to be an “instructional match”?
• “Learning Disabilities, like other disabilities, vary with
the individual. Intra-individual differences may include
strengths and weaknesses in performance, achievement or
both. In addition, each of these differences must be
considered relative to age, grade, or intellectual abilities
and within areas pertinent to learning (e.g, listening,
reading, writing, reasoning, and mathematics). [page 10]
Comprehensive assessment and evaluation of students with
learning disabilities : A paper prepared by the National Joint
Committee on Learning Disabilities. June 2010. Learning
Disability Quarterly. (2011). , 34(1), 3 – 16.
• “ The ‘two factor theory of math fact learning we are
proposing her suggests that difficulties learning math
facts might result from either weaknesses in phonological
processing or weakly developed number sense.” (p. 86)
• Robinson, C. S., Menchetti, B. M., & Torgesen, J. K.
(2002). Toward a two-factor theory of one type of
mathematics disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research
and Practice, 17(2), 81 -89.
Examples of Complexity in
Cognitive Abilities and Impact on
Learning
• “Our findings provide support for including cognitive processes
related to the suspected area of disability in the explanatory
component of an SLD diagnostic process. Clinicians should assess
processes strongly related to a specific area of academic achievement
(Flanagan, etc. al., 206; Mather & Gregg, 2006; Pennington, 2009).
The magnitude of effect sizes suggests that the key cognitive areas on
which to focus include working memory, processing speed, executive
functioning, and receptive and expressive language.” (p. 13)
• Johnson, E. S., Humphrey, M., Mellard, D. F., Woods, K., &
Swanson, H. L. (2010). Cognitive processing deficits and students
with specific learning disabilities: A selective meta-analysis of the
literature. Learning Disability Quarterly, 33(1), 3 – 18.
Relating Cognitive Abilities to
Academic and Literacy Domains
Oral or Written
Expression
Reading
Spelling
Mathematics
Memory
Perception
Cognition
Attention
Executive Functioning
Metacognition
Social Skills
Conceptual Learning
Manifestations of
Learning Disabilities
• (10) Specific learning disability —(i) General. 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, that may manifest itself in the
imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do
mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual
disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and
developmental aphasia.
• (ii) Disorders not included. Specific learning disability does not
include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual,
hearing, or motor disabilities, of intellectual disability, of emotional
disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic
disadvantage. [34 CFR §300.8(c)(10)]
IDEA Definition has not
changed…
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
Underachievement: Learning difficulties in
language, reading, writing, or math that
require SPD
Review exclusionary factors
Document processing deficits based on
CHC theory
Academic deficits related to processing
deficits
Document areas of processing strengths
based on CHC theory
Establish interference with functioning &
review exclusionary factors
Criteria met for SLD
Evaluation for LD
(Kavale & Forness, 2000; Flanagan, 2007)
• What is the problem?
• Legal requirement to evaluate in all areas of suspected
disability
• The child is assessed in all areas related to the
suspected disability, including, if appropriate, health,
vision, hearing, social and emotional status, general
intelligence, academic performance, communicative
status, and motor abilities
• § 300.304 Evaluation procedures
• Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1414(b)(1)-(3), 1412(a)(6)(B))
Evaluation:
Referral Information
• Observations
• Interviews
• Record Review
• Progress Monitoring Data
Informal Evaluation Data
• Best to use co-normed instruments for
achievement and cognitive ability
• For children with cultural and language
issues KABC II-KTEA II family can be
used
• Other: Wechsler Family with
supplemental testing using the DAS-II
or other instrument
• Woodcock-Johnson III
Cognitive Ability
• Research Based
• Cattell: 1941
• Horn: 1965
• Carroll: 1993
• Other theories of intelligence are not based on
research
• CHC Theory is based on factor analytic
studies
• CHC: McGrew 1997
CHC Theory
“G”
Cognitive Abilities
Fluid Intelligence (Gf)
Visual Processing (Gv)
Quantitative Knowledge
Auditory Processing (Ga)
Gq)
Crystallized Intelligence
Long term Storage and
(Gc)
Retrieval (Glr)
Reading and Writing (Grw) Processing Theory (Gs)
Short-Term Memory (Gsm) Decision/Reaction
Time/Speed (Gt)
CHC Theory: 10 Broad and
70+ Narrow Ability Areas
• Assess narrow ability areas required to determine
general intellectual ability
• Assess in broad and narrow ability areas related to the
suspected disability
Cognitive Assessment
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Basic Reading Skills
Reading Fluency
Reading Comprehension
Written Expression
Oral Expression
Listening Comprehension
Math?
Reading Concern: What
areas to assess?
• Sizeable percentage of those with learning disabilities
in reading also have learning disabilities in math
• Extant data: grades, work samples, and benchmark
testing
Math
• Assess in all areas of suspected
disability
• Decision to use a targeted
assessment process or to use a
general protocol approach
Legal Requirement
• Assess in all academic areas where there is a suspected
disability
• Assess in basic cognitive areas required to determine
that the suspected disability is not due to intellectual
disability
• Assess in cognitive areas, either Broad or Narrow
Ability Areas or both, that are related to the area or
areas of academic difficulty
• Analyze data for a pattern of strengths and
weaknesses (PSW)
Using the CHC Processing
Approach to Evaluation
• Planning Guide: select those tests that
are related to the area of suspected
disability for the child’s age group
• Research indicates that different narrow
ability areas are related to various
academic areas at different age groups:
ages 6-8, 9-13, 14-19
Test Selection
• Pattern of strengths and weaknesses indicative of dual
language background rather than a disability
• Students perform better on subtests that are not
linguistically and culturally loaded
• Poor performance in those areas requiring linguistic
and cultural knowledge, particularly Gc
• Culture-Language Interpretive Matrix (Ortiz, 2007)
Caveats: Dual Language
Backgrounds
Floyd, R.G., McGrew, K.S., & Evans, J.J. (2008). The relative contributions of the
Cattell-Horn-Carroll cognitive abilities in explaining writing achievement during
childhood and adolescence. Psychology in the Schools, 45(2), 132-144.
McGrew, K.S. (2011). Applied psychometrics 101: CHC narrow ability assessment
with the WJ III Battery. Institute for Applied Psychometrics, Retrieved March 17,
2012 from http://iapsych.com/iapap101/iapap10112.pdf .
McGrew, K.S., & Wendling, B. (2010). Cattell-Horn-Carroll cognitive achievement
relations: What have we learned from the past 20 years of research. Psychology in
the Schools, 47(7), 651-675.
Ramaa, S., & Gowramma, I. P. (2002). A systematic procedure for identifying and
classifying children with dyscalculia among primary school children in India.
Dyslexia, 8, 67-85.
Robinson, C.S., Menchette, B.M., Torgeson, J. (2002). Toward a two-factor theory of
one type of mathematics disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice,
17, 81-89.
Vukovic, R.K. (2012). Mathematics difficulty with and without reading difficulty:
Findings and implications from a four-year longitudinal study. Exceptional
Children, 78, 280-300.
Wagner, R. K. & Compton, D. L. (2011). Dynamic assessment and its implications for
RTI models. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 44(4), 311 – 312.
References