Course Description
This graduate seminar examines theoretical, research, and practical issues related to the identification and support of students with learning disabilities. It assists students in understanding the origin of the concept of learning disabilities, evaluating the strengths and limitations of the learning disability label, identifying difficulties faced by students who have been labeled learning disabled, and evaluating intervention strategies designed to support students with learning disabilities. The final assignment (see below) requires students to propose new, or evaluate existing interventions either for youth with learning disabilities, or more generally, for youth whose needs are not being met in the mainstream school system.
Final Project Description
One of the requirements for students in EPSE 526 is a group project that has implications for individuals with learning disabilities or for individuals whose needs are not being met in the mainstream school system. This type of examination is important because youth who struggle in school engage in risky, self-handicapping behaviours at higher rates than youth who are successful. Student projects either evaluate existing, or propose new preventions and/or interventions for youth with learning disabilities, or more generally, for youth who struggle in school. Students prepare a presentation that synthesizes their work and makes recommendations for a variety of stakeholder groups (e.g., researchers, educators, policy makers).
Current Project
Students who took EPSE 526 in January, 2013 completed their projects as posters for presentation at the biennial conference of the International Association of Special Education to be held at UBC in July, 2013.
- Can Early Number Sense Interventions in Combination with a RTI Approach Help Prevent Math Failures?
- Can Using Art Overcome Writing Output Difficulties in Students with Learning Disabilities?
- Fostering Self-Regulated Learning by Elementary Students Who Are English Language Learners with Reading Difficulties
- Implications of Differentiated Instruction for Students’ School-Related Self-Efficacy, Motivation, Engagement and Achievement
- Supporting English Language Learners with/without Reading Disabilities Using Response to Intervention
- Supporting Preschoolers with Learning Disabilities based on Children’s Voices
- Supporting the Spatial Working Memory Abilities of Students with Dyscalculia: An Aspiring Outlook on Neuroscience-informed Instructional Strategies and Math Intervention
- Strength-Based Strategies for Students with Learning Disabilities
- What Strategies Can Parents of Children with Learning Difficulties Adopt in Order to Promote Self-Regulation Across Dimensions Other than School Related Tasks?
- What Strategies Can we Use in an Elementary School to Help Students with LD Build Self-Advocacy Skills?
Projects from Previous YEars
Year: 2011
This year’s student presentations focus on characteristics of, and interventions for, youth whose needs are not met in the mainstream school system. One discusses difficulties experienced by (and potential interventions for) Aboriginal students in Canada. The second describes and evaluates three Vancouver-based educational programs targeting at-risk students. And the third describes a program (designed by the presenters) that teaches employment skills to university students with LD.
Year: 2010
Student presentations from this year describe the association between learning disabilities (LDs) and delinquency; instruments to identify difficulties commonly experienced by students with LD; and reading and socio-emotional interventions for incarcerated youth.
- Self-determination, Motivation, Social-emotional Factors, Learning Disability, and Delinquency
- Educating Incarcerated Youth with LD: What Works?
- Learning Disabilities and Juvenile Delinquency
Year: 2009
The topic for 2009 covered the association between academic difficulties and involvement in the juvenile justice system; results from teacher, student, and parent interviews about risk- and protective-factors for school failure; services being offered in the juvenile justice systems of various countries; and recommendations for researchers, educators, and policy-makers.
