Locate organizations and agencies within your state that address disability-related issues.

A Selective Synthesis of Intervention Research for Students with Learning Disabilities 

Summary View | Full Abstract

In the two decades between the mid 1970’s and the mid 1990’s the number of children classified as having a specific learning disability (LD) nearly tripled. Children with LD became the largest single category of students served under special education, accounting for almost half of all the children receiving special education services. Despite the growing number of students receiving special education under the category of "specific learning disability," the authors of this study found that questions such as, "Which intervention is best suited for students with LD?" and "Which intervention works best for which subgroup of students with LD?" could still not be answered. This meta-analysis was undertaken to answer these questions and synthesize what intervention research could tell us about effective instructional interventions for children with LD.

1. Which intervention works best for which subgroup of students with LD?
2. Do the interventions that are effective in teaching students with LD vary depending on the following factors:
1. Instructional domain (e.g., reading, social skills),
2. Sample characteristics (e.g., age, intelligence),
3. Intervention parameters (length of sessions, number of weeks),
4. Sampling procedures (e.g., random assignment to conditions vs. intact groups)?

1. Reading was the most researched domain, whereas mathematics and intellectual processing were the least researched.
2. Intervention studies that produced the highest effect sizes were based on cognitive and/or direct instruction.
3. No significant differences in effect sizes were found across response domains (e.g., reading, mathematics, spelling, language).
4. Effect sizes for cognitive processes (e.g., attribution, metacognition, memory) were higher when coupled with academic domains than when "isolated" for intervention.
5. Effect sizes were significantly higher for intact or stratified groups than for randomly sampled groups.

The large mean effect size suggests that a variety of instructional approaches have a significant beneficial effect on students with LD.

• Reading instruction for students with LD is the most researched domain, with 16 studies on word recognition skills and nearly twice as many studies focused on reading comprehension. The most underrepresented domains of investigation are in the areas of mathematics, intelligence, language, perception, and memory.

This meta-analysis indicates that specific procedures are effective in certain instructional areas.

• Effective procedures for reading comprehension, for example, are direct instruction and cognitive strategy instruction. (Sources of additional information on both of these approaches are listed under the "Additional Resources" section.) 
• Word recognition skills and spelling are most positively influenced by phonetic/decoding training.  (More information on phonetic/decoding training is available via the links provided in the "Additional Resources" section.)
• Cognitive strategy instruction is effective in the communication-language domain.

Some domains are influenced by various treatment effects, even when they are not the main focus of the intervention.

• For example, cognitive strategy instruction used to improve reading or writing performance may also influence measures of cognition, such as metacognition (i.e., when a learner thinks about, plans, or evaluates his or her own thinking or learning).