LEARNING DISABILITIES: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
In general, a learning disability is defined by Little (1993) as a disorder that affects students' ability to either interpret what they see and hear or to link information from different parts of the brain. In other words, the term is a generic one that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders due to identifiable or inferred central nervous system dysfunction. Such disorders, according to Little, may be manifested by delays in early development and/or difficulties in any of the following areas: attention, memory, reasoning, coordination, communication, reading, writing, spelling, calculation, social competence and emotional maturation.
Ever since the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (PL-94-142), efforts have been made to integrate learning disabled (LD) students into regular classrooms so as to make sure that LD students learn in the least restrictive environment (Banerji & Dailey, 1995). Little (1993) reports that a great deal of educational research has focused on investigating for the effects of the integration of LD students into the regular classroom environment, a process commonly referred to as "inclusion" or "mainstreaming." However, the findings of this research has proved problematic in that while some studies find very positive effects for inclusion, other research finds rather negative effects.
For example, Vaughn and Haager (1994) compared the social abilities of disabled and nondisabled elementary school students (kindergarten through fifth grade) in mainstreamed classrooms. Measures in the study included peer-rating scales, behavioral problem and social skills assessments (completed by teachers). Students in the fifth grade were interviewed for additional information on their friendships. According to the authors, the findings of their study indicated that both groups of students had very stable peer acceptance scores and we...