Cognitive Training with Learning-Disabled Pupils

Abstract

Considering the broad array of symptoms and conditions that characterize children identified as exceptional, it is reasonable to hypothesize that learning-disabled children are likely candidates for cognitive training programs. Learning-disabled children learn many things well, yet show puzzling patterns of inconsistency in achievement and performance. Their school work may be satisfactory one day but dramatically inadequate the next; they may be deficient in reading but do average work in arithmetic; they may be attentive and task-directed at one moment, but erratic and distracted the next. It is these very inconsistencies that, although puzzling, provide the intuitive basis for the belief that learning-disabled children would profit from cognitive training techniques. Said directly, if learning-disabled children can learn and perform well in some situations, they may be helped through cognitive training to learn and perform well in many situations.