This researcher investigated the effects of repeated reading, performance feedback, and systematic error correction on the reading fluency of three secondary English language learners (ELLs) with a specific learning disability (SLD) in reading. A multiple baseline reversal design across subjects was used to explore the effects of repeated reading on two dependent variables: reading fluency (words read correctly per minute; wpm) and number of errors per minute (epm). Data were collected and analyzed during baseline, intervention, and maintenance probes.Throughout the baseline phase participants read a passage aloud and during intervention phases, participants read a passage aloud and received error correction feedback. During baseline, reading was followed by fluency assessments. During intervention, reading was followed by three oral repeated readings of the passage. Maintenance sessions occurred 1, 2, and 3 weeks after the intervention ended.The researcher of this study concluded that repeated reading had a positive effect on the reading abilities of ELLs with a SLD in reading. Participants read more wpm and made fewer epm. Additionally, maintenance scores were slightly varied when compared to the last day of intervention; however, maintenance scores were higher than baseline means.The researcher of this study demonstrated that repeated reading improved the reading abilities of ELLs with a SLD in reading. On maintenance probes 1, 2, and 3 weeks following intervention mean reading fluency and errors per minute remained above baseline levels. Future researchers should investigate the use of repeated reading in ELLs with a SLD in reading at various stages of reading acquisition. Further, future researchers may examine how repeated reading can be integrated into classroom instruction and assessments.

An emerging theory of learning disabilities characterized learning disabled students as inactive learners who do not spontaneously employ task-appropriate cognitive strategies. This study addressed the range of tasks to which this characterization applies. It compared learning disabled and average achieving students' spontaneous activation of differential reading strategies as evoked by the situational context of reading tasks. Subjects were 20 learning disabled and 20 average achieving seventh graders. Groups were controlled for age and non-verbal intelligence. Learning disabled students had been diagnosed as such and exhibited serious reading difficulties. Within two experimentally induced situational contexts, students read and retold short, narrative passages which contained interpropositional consistencies. Within a storytelling context, designed to maximize interaction between text and background knowledge, subjects were instructed to think about the appropriateness of the passage for young children and imagine a first-grade audience while accurately retelling the passage. Within a memory context, designed to maximize differentiation of text from background knowledge, the same subjects were to read and retell another story for the sole purpose of maintaining accuracy. Stories were counterbalanced across contexts. Retellings were categorized as either evidencing distortions which resolved text inconsistencies or as accurately maintaining the inconsistencies of the original text. Nonparametric tests were used for data analysis. Results indicated that both groups shifted retell strategy in response to situational context, with no significant differences between groups. Within the storytelling context, retellings tended to resolve passage inconsistencies. Within the memory context, retellings were generally accurate in their maintenance of inconsistencies. The memory context also fostered increased accuracy for both groups on a sentence recognition task. Responses to comprehension monitoring questions suggested on relationship between retell strategy and students' expressed awareness of text inconsistency. Findings indicate that both learning disabled and average students respond to situational contexts of reading tasks. They can activate increased interaction between text and background knowledge or increased differentiation of text from background knowledge. It was concluded that the characterization of learning disabled students as cognitively inactive does not apply to the spontaneous activation of differential reading strategies evoked by the situational context of the reading act.

Open-ended interview questions were asked to ten college freshmen with learning disabilities (LD) to provide the primary source of data in this qualitative study that was done to explore personal experiences of these students in transitioning from high school to a large university. Student participants were chosen based on meeting the criteria of having a diagnosed specific learning disability, having qualified and received special education services in high school, and at the time of the study were receiving accommodations through the Disability Resource Center (DRC) at the University of Arizona (UA). Students were further identified as members of a "successful" group with a first semester grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 or higher, or members of a "jeopardy" group with a first semester GPA of below 2.0 and the academic status of probation. This was done in order to ensure that I included the perceptions of students at the high and low range of academic status levels in this sample, not to compare or contrast the two groups. Interviews yielded information about student perceptions of barriers, attitudes, resources and assistive factors in the transition process. Data were analyzed to determine themes related to student success and difficulties. Suggestions for further research and information for future practice are offered.

The purpose of this study was to compare two groups of males in Arizona Department of Corrections (ADJC) custody with regard to three factors. The first group consisted of youth sentenced to ADJC who later received criminal charges for which they were transferred to the adult court system, ("Transferred" group), and the second group involved youth sentenced to ADJC who did not receive any additional criminal charges for which they were transferred, ("Non-Transferred" group). The variables examined were: youth with versus without a special education disability diagnosis, most serious level of offense for which the youth was imprisoned, and ethnicity. Due to the lack of prior research in this area, only null hypotheses were formulated. The first hypothesis was there would be no significant differences between the two groups on the observed versus expected frequencies of each of the variables studied. The second hypothesis was that there would be no significant association between the two groups with regard to their disability status on each of the variables.The results showed that regarding disability status, the null hypothesis was not rejected. The frequency of disabilities represented in both groups and the proportion of youth eligible to receive special education services was not different. Regarding the seriousness of offense level, the null hypothesis that both groups were identical was not rejected; indicating that the Transferred group was not significantly different from the Non-Transferred group in frequency of most serious offense level. In terms of disability status, and level of offense committed, the null hypothesis was also not rejected. Finally, regarding ethnic representation, no significant associations were found for the groups.The groups studied showed a larger percentage of youth receiving special education services, in comparison to the percentage of youth receiving special education services within the whole educational system. The groups also had a larger percentage of minorities compared to the latest Arizona census information on ethnic backgrounds of children under age 18. The results highlight the similarities between the Transferred and Non-Transferred groups and discuss the implications of the findings, future research directions, and the study's limitations.

This dissertation critically explores the governance of disability, social marginalization, and spatial exclusion in highland Ecuador. Since the 1990s, disabled Ecuadorians have moved from a state of social neglect and physical isolation to wider societal participation, fueled in part by national campaigns aimed at promoting disability rights. Many have joined grassroots organizations through biosocial networks based on the collective identity of shared impairment. However, their incorporation into the labor market, educational systems, and public sphere has been uneven and impeded by underlying spatial and cultural barriers. Based on twelve months of ethnographic research I conducted among people with physical and visual disabilities in the city of Cuenca, this research analyzes narratives of disablement within the local disabled community. I focus on the consequences of living with embodied differences considered to be anomalous within environments designed for nondisabled citizens. The study extends current scholarship on the social context of disability to a Latin American country with significant ethnic and economic hierarchies, exploring disability as an important dimension of social stratification that is both produced and remedied by the state. In Ecuador, the social category of people with disabilities has emerged through historical processes and campaigns that emphasize the prevention of impairment and chronic disease, promotion of equal rights, and inclusive labor markets - all of which are part of a broader aspiration toward modernity. I argue that disability is often an overlooked but important, cross-cutting form of bodily and behavioral difference that creates multiple marginalities. Emphasizing social practices and structural dimensions of disability shifts the attention away from approaches that foreground individual, psychological, or medical aspects of disablement and instead contributes to wider anthropological understandings of disability as socially produced, constructed, managed and enacted. In analyzing disability as a cross-cutting category, this research reframes disability as contingent on local constructions of normativity, highlighting how bodies come to be recognized as "abled" or "disabled" within particular productions of space and systems of un/marked subjects.

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