Assessment of children with learning disabilities: Does the promise of dynamic assessment withstand the test of time?

摘要

Recent statistics indicate that students classified as LD represent over 50% of all children receiving special education services. However, the growing body of research indicates that a substantial numbers of these children are misclassified. Dynamic assessment has been proposed as an alternative means of classifying children at risk for LD. The present study (1) examined whether children who are nonresponsive to dynamic testing maintain these patterns over time (that is, do the patterns of change for non-responders vary from responders on academic growth measures) and, (2) compared the academic achievement growth between children classified by dynamic measures as responders and non-responders on academic achievement measures. Results indicated that membership in LD or Non-LD groups did not change across the three years. Additionally, children responsive to treatment, unlike nonresponders, evidenced academic growth in word recognition and reading comprehension but not for mathematics. The author discusses the implication of the findings and the necessity for a reconceptualization of LD classification criteria in terms of domain-specific nonresponsiveness to treatment rather than the traditional criteria of an unexpected academic-ability discrepancy.