Identifying Students Suspected with Learning Disabilities in the Middle East: A Detailed Guiding Checklist

Proposed guidelines have been published recently (Al-Hilawani, 2016) to help identify and determine for the first time the existence of learning disabilities among students in the Middle East Arab (M.E.A.) countries. These guidelines have been drawn from recent and up-to-date information available on learning disabilities. The purpose of this article is to present a simplified step-by-step decision procedure to reduce to a minimum the learning disabilities identification errors, mistakes, and/or misinterpretations of the published guidelines. These detailed steps are necessary in the Middle East to create a clear orientation and consistency in determining the presence of a learning disability in the region. Due to the lack of standardized norm and criterion reference tests, informal assessment measures (e.g., Curriculum-Based Measurement; teacher's made tools and prepared procedures) are advocated.