Learning Disabilities in the Secondary School: Student Progress and Characteristics.

The final project evaluation on "Curricular Development for Secondary Learning Disabilities" focuses on the academic achievement of 86 students who participated in seven secondary learning disabilities classes in which the curricular model developed by the project was utilized. It is noted that the purpose of the project was to provide intensive developmental/remedial instruction to learning disabled adolescents in an effort to significantly upgrade their math and language arts skills. The report provides informaton in the following project components: the sample, test measures, procedures, and results (relating to such areas as intellectual status, process functioning, academic achievement, and vocational interests). Among the reported findings are that learning disabled students have severe deficits in many areas of academic skills; that given an intensive remedial academic program, students are able to make impressive gains in reading and mathematics; and students have a strong interest in enrolling in vocational-technical programs in high school. Appendixes, which make up over half the document, include tables with demographic information and test scores. (SBH)