Danny is a generally bright, cheerful 4th grade student who was recently diagnosed with a significant learning disability. His measured IQ is 110 (Verbal 115, Performance 92). Measures of academic performance are: Broad Mathematics 121, Broad Reading 76, Broad Written Language 90. Deficits were found in the areas of visual memory, visual processing, and visual motor integration. Danny has many friends and his parents report that Danny is well adjusted and well liked by others. His engaging smile and willingness to try new things is apparent in his home and in the community. In school, however, Danny is a different child. He rarely smiles and appears to be "down on himself"" according to his teacher and some of his neighborhood friends. He is constantly voicing his frustrations with assignments that require reading and writing skills. His attitude towards school has become progressively worse over the past 3 years, coinciding with his increasing difficulties with the content as the grade levels increase.
Reading is very difficult for Danny. Standardized testing indicates that he is functioning about two grade levels below his current placement (2nd grade skill level). Danny is a very slow reader and he often struggles with decoding words. He will generally require 3-4 times more time than his friends to complete the same reading assignment. When he has finished reading the passage, however, he is able to recall important details, main ideas, and inferential questions on par with his peers. His teachers have noted that Danny has more trouble with extended reading assignments. He will often attempt the task but quickly give up when the task involves reading more than 1 page. Oral reading samples show that Danny will often mispronounce a word, repeat sections of the text because he has skipped an entire sentence or missed a sentence fragment by jumping a line ahead in the text. His word recognition skills are poor. Given tests where Danny must read and identify sets of words, he frequently mistakes target words for other words. For example, Danny will read "left" as "felt" or mistake "pan" for "nap." In oral reading, Danny will recognize this error are repeat the sentence inserting the appropriate word on the second reading
Written language is probably Danny's worst content area. His writing is sloppy and wanders all over the page. Many times his papers are full of holes as he has erased with enough force to tear the paper. Letters are incorrectly formed and he will reverse the following letters b, d, p, and q. Other students complain that they cannot read Danny's writing samples because his writing is so hard to read. When Danny writes, his stories or writing samples are short, use abbreviated language. For example, he typically omits adverbs, adjectives, articles, and uses short, simple words rather than more complex forms of words. Danny's teachers have also noticed that his vocabulary is not as developed as his peers. Danny appears to "lock into" on definition of a word, ignoring other definitions or meanings.
Danny also has difficulty with spelling. He frequently misspells words orally and in written work. His teachers seem to feel that no matter how much they drill correct spellings, Danny is unable to transfer that knowledge to written work. Here is an example of Danny's last spelling test:
Danny struggles most when reading and writing tasks are combined. He will often become overwhelmed and give up after several minutes. His teacher seem to feel that he becomes confused when complex tasks are given that require him to read and complete the task independently. They often observe Danny watching other students to see what they are doing before he begins working on the task. Once he gets the idea he is often able to initiate working on the task. He often rushes through lengthy tasks, preferring to "get it done" rather than "get it right." His teachers report that he often has to redo assignments because it is obvious that he has not given it his best effort. Another result of his rushing through tasks is that he receives poor grades (typically Cs or Ds).
Of great concern to the school staff has been the increasing occurrence of noncompliantand "off task" behaviors. Danny has been refusing to complete work. His teachers have noticed that he is becoming argumentative and stubborn. Last semester he began to get into verbal arguments with his teachers about assignments. His mother is particularly concerned with this because her cheerful son has been sent to the principal's office three times in the last 2 months for "defiant" behaviors. Teacher have reported decreased inattention to tasks, increased levels of distractibility, and that Danny has been more likely to rush through his assignments. Danny is frequently blurting out answers during group discussions. His friends and teachers indicated that he has been more irritable and often fidgets and wiggles in his desk during independent-work periods. Simple contingency plans (reinforcing him for not doing these behaviors) have failed to address these problems. In the last IEP meeting, the psychologist wanted to have Danny evaluated for oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and attention deficit disorder (ADD).