Date of Award

7-1996

Document Type

Field Project

Degree Name

Specialist in Education (Ed.S.)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Lisa Kelly-Vance

Second Advisor

Norman H. Hamm

Third Advisor

Bridgette O. Ryalls

Abstract

The present study examined the performance of a heterogeneous population of learning disabled children (N=171) and children with learning disabilities in reading (LD-R), math (LD-M), and reading and math (LD-R+M) on the WISC-III ACID and SCAD subtests (Arithmetic, Coding, Information, Digit Span, and Symbol Search). Archival WISC-III scores of children that have been verified as having a learning disability in fourteen Midwestern school systems were used to answer the research questions in this study. Two different methods of examining performance on the ACID and SCAD subtests were used in this study, the index score method and the profile method. The results showed that the heterogeneous LD sample performed significantly lower on the ACID index than on the SCAD index, p =.017. The subgroups (LD-R, LD-M, LD-R+M) did not significantly differ from each other on ACID index or the SCAD index, p = .108. Also, the ACID and SCAD indexes did not differ for the subgroups, p = .424. However, the Arithmetic subtest was low for the LD-M group relative to the LD-R group. Additionally, the Information subtest was low for the LD-R group relative to the LD-M group. The final index score comparison showed that the Freedom From Distractibility (FD) portion of the SCAD index was significantly lower than the Processing Speed (PS) portion of the SCAD index for the LD-R group, p= .006,

the LD-M group, p = .002, and the LD-R+M group, p= .004. The heterogeneous LD sample performed equally poorly on the ACID and SCAD profiles. However, for the subgroups the LD-M group displayed greater frequencies of the ACID and SCAD profiles than the LD-R or LD-R+M groups. Although the current study had some limitations the results have significant implications for school psychologists assessing students with learning disabilities.

Comments

Ed.S. Field Project Presented to the Department of Psychology and the Faculty of the Graduate College University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Specialist in Education University of Nebraska at Omaha.

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