Appropriate Help for Secondary Students with Specific Learning Difficulties.

This paper presents the program and general details of the Learning Disabilities Clinic (LDC) at the Southampton University (England) School of Education, which focuses on the students' curriculum and stresses close co-operation with the school. The program makes the students active agents in developing their own strategies with LDC help. Students are referred from secondary school psychological services for help with specific learning difficulties. The program described here contained 15 students, aged 12 to 17 years; they meet for 2, 1-hour individual lessons a week. Assistance is given in reading, spelling, oral skills, work in school subjects, and counseling for literacy handicaps. Most students have reading and spelling difficulties, lack confidence for literacy-based tasks, and are unable to cope with school. Teachers may use tape recorders, microcomputers, photo-enlarging, selective highlighting, and duplicated notes as tools and strategies to help students. The special needs coordinator, part of every secondary school program in Southampton, insures that the student can exercise in schools what is learned at the Clinic; parents, school subject teachers, and the educational psychologists also play a vital role. (Contains seven references.) (NAV)