Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-119). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

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The purpose of the present study was to assess whether girls with LD were at a greater risk for self-reported depressive symptomatology compared to both boys with LD and girls without LD. Differences in the pattern of responses of girls with LD and boys with LD on the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) were also evaluated. In order to identify a learning disability, the short-form of the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children and the Wide Range Achievement Test were administered to 204 subjects. Results revealed that girls with LD demonstrated an increased risk for depressive symptomatology as compared to girls without LD. Boys, on the other hand, regardless of a learning disability, manifested a comparable rate of depressive symptomatology. It appears that having a learning disability increases girls' propensity towards depression. Finally, differences in the pattern of responses were found for girls and boys with and without LD.

The present study was designed to see if children with learning disabilities could be taught three-row, double-digit addition problems using a dot-notation method. Three children with learning disabilities were selected for the study. Prior to the intervention, these students used a combination of count-all and count-on strategies when solving addition problems and used concrete referents such as fingers or tallies. A multiple-probe design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention with the 3 subjects. The experiment consisted of a teaching phase where students were taught to touch and count the dots on numbers 1 to 9 in a specified pattern and an intervention phase where students progressed through nine levels of addition problems. The final stage consisted of three-row, double-digit addition problems requiring regrouping with touch points removed. Results indicate that the 3 subjects were able to learn and apply the dot-notation method successfully and were able to retain the method from one and a half to four and a half months after completing instruction. Suggestions for future research and for teachers are discussed.

Self-concept in social and academic domains, as well as global self-worth (GSW) were assessed among 4th, 5th, and 6 th graders, in children with learning disabilities (LD, n = 49) and a matched sample of children without LD (NLD, n = 49). Mean differences between LD and NLD groups and the relative importance of social versus academic self-concept in the prediction of GSW were examined. Children with LD evidenced significantly lower self-concept in academic and social domains; however, the two groups did not differ in terms of global self-worth. In addition, academic and social self-concepts were significant predictors of GSW in children with LD, although there was a high degree of overlap between the two variables in their predictive ability. In the NLD group, social and academic self-concept areas were significant predictors of global self-worth yet there was minimal overlap between the two self-concept areas. Implications are discussed.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation. / Department of Educational Psychology

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of two different methods of teaching learning disabled middle school students (6th, 7th, and 8th grades) how to solve one-step addition and subtraction mathematics story problems. This study also compared the generalization of the two instructional methods to problems written in simple syntax which required the performance of two mathematics operations, addition and subtraction, in order to obtain the correct written solution.Teachers were randomly assigned to one of the two instructional methods. The students in the experimental and control classrooms were administered the The Mathematics Computation Screeninq Test, the One-step Story Problem-Solving Test of Mathematics Reasoninq and the Two-step Story Problem-Solving Test of Mathematics Reasoninq. Students who obtained above 80% mastery on the The Mathematics Computation Screening Test and at or below 67% mastery on the pretest of the One-step Story Problem-Solving Test of Mathematics Reasoning were included in the experimental and control groups. Students in the experimental and control groups who meet the above criteria and were at or below the 60% mastery level on the pretest of the Two-step Storv Problem Solving Test of, Mathematics Reasoning were included in the analysis of two-step problems. There were 70 students who meet these criteria. Following administration of the tests, students received 17 days of instruction in one of the two instructional methods.Previous research has shown that good problem-solvers initially have a mental representation of a story problem prior to solving the problem and that accurate performance may be increased by teaching students to generate diagrammatic representations of the problems. Based on this research it was hypothesized that learning disabled students who receive instruction in generating diagrammatic representations would have a higher mean performance on a linear composite of writing number sentences and solving one-step addition and subtraction story problems than learning disabled students who did not receive this instruction when pretest performance on one-step written solutions was held constant. It was also hypothezied that when presented with two-step addition and subtraction story problems learning disabled students who receive instruction in how to generate diagrammatic representations for various one-step addition and subtraction story problems would have a higher mean performance than learning disabled students who do not receive this instruction when pretest one-step and two-step written solutions were held constant.A 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 hierarchical multivariate analysis of covariance mixed effects design followed by examination of step down F ratios was used to test the one-step hypotheses. Analysis of the data indicated no significant difference between the groups on number sentence writing and on solving one-step addition and subtraction story problems varying in syntactic complexity and position of the unknown term. The data did indicate a significant interaction between the within subject factors of syntax, position of the unknown term, and mathematics operation.A 2 X 2 hierarchical analysis of covariance design was used to test the hypotheses regarding generalization of the two instructional methods to two-step story problems of addition and subtraction. Analysis of the data indicated no significant difference between the problem-solving performance of students taught with the diagrammatic instructional method and those taught in the control group. / Department of Special Education