A New Perspective in Teacher Education

There is much research yet to be completed in the field of learning disabilities before we can move with the assurance that we are on the correct path. However, research with groups of socalled children with learning disabilities is well nigh impossible to complete with any sense of accuracy due to variations in definition and the multiples of uncontrolled variables that exist between and among two or more children. It is my considered opinion that a significant breakthrough in research would occur by following the developing concepts of single-subject research, but that too has its advocates and opponents. Regardless of the lack of research, some of us have had nearly 45 years of experience with learning disabled children, experience which for long periods of time has brought us into daily contact with these children in small groups or as individuals. It is, without question, possible over this span of time and with this clinical psychoeducational experience to be able to make generalizations that are valid and that are appropriately inherent in the core of the problems we face. I do not apologize for the lack of basic educational or psychological research. Most of what appears in journals is worthless because of the impossibility of controlling variables within children and within teachers or others who work with them. It is possible to speak definitively from the point of view of theory that has grown out of more than four decades of intimate contact with these children.