bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The sudden death of a millionaire: conversion and consensus in a Ghanaian kingdom
Authors: Gilbert Michelle
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph

The unexpected death of a citizen in 1977 triggered a series of events in one small Ghanaian kingdom, pointing to confusion in the locally accepted criteria for Christian conversion and to contradictions in the avenues to status and power. Since the deceased was a millionaire businessman, something of a huckster, and a person who was at the centre of an unusually complex constellation of social ties, his death forced the people of his local community to re-examine the relationships between traditional religion and Christianity, and between wealth, religious adherence and the display of status and prestige. There was long and bitter hostility between the two towns to which this man was affiliated by descent. Each town competed for the glory of ; claiming him as a member, and while once he too would have desired that, logically it could not be. There was also perennial conflict between the factions within the kingdom's capital. This enhanced the drama and helped explain the urgency of the respective townspeople's attempts to resolve the underlying structural contradictions which became manifest in the events following the death to their own advantage. At the same time this is the story of a self-made man, unusual largely because of his extreme wealth, who understood conflict and ambiguity, and who manipulated the social structure in which he found himself to his own advantage. The funeral of this one man, who simultaneously entertained contradictory belief systems and juggled opposing attributes of leadership, mobilised the attention of the entire population of both towns. It did so precisely because the ritual of his funeral was used to ‘describe in advance a desired but uncertain state of affairs. It [ritual] is about power and is itself more or less political’ (MacGaffey, 1986: 11, emphasis added).
Warfare, oracles and iron: a case study of production among the pre-colonial Klowe, in the light of some recent Marxist analyses
Authors: Brown David
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph

It is perhaps surprising that the recent resurgence of interest in the application of Marxist theory to the study of the historically non-capitalist societies of the Third World should have focused, at least in part, upon the stateless societies of Africa. To some extent, this interest in some of the least differentiated and least class-stratified of societies can be related to the fundamental problematic of Marxist sociology: the characterization of the stage of advanced communism, which remains so obscure in Marx's own theoretical work. An understanding of the dynamics of ‘primitive’ communism might be seen, therefore, as an essential precursor to this underlying concern. Certainly, the often highly tendentious views of Marxist writers on such issues as the definition of the state and the extent of exploitation in the primitive communist mode can be related to this need. However, the rise of Marxist anthropology has not only been presented as a problem of general evolutionary theory. Other influences have been offered to account for the new concern, the most widely cited being the supposed crisis of functionalism, and the resulting necessity for a complete reorientation of the whole discipline of anthropology. Stateless societies, having long occupied a central place in the field of anthropological enquiry, and yet outwardly presenting such simplicity of form, offer a particular challenge to the radical, and in several recent works have been interpreted in what is claimed to be a novel and distinctive way.
Come vero Prencipe Catolico: the Capuchins and the rulers of Soyo in the late seventeenth century
Authors: Gray Richard
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph

Students of Europe's contact with Africa have long regarded the Christian missions in the ancient kingdom of Kongo as a peculiarly potent symbol. For some the conversion and subsequent reign of Afonso I in the first half of the sixteenth century were a momentary aberration, a false dawn quickly to be obscured by the realities of the exploitation associated with mercantile capitalism and the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade. For others, the story of these missions has merely served to illustrate the continuing inviolability of indigenous traditions. Kongo society, it is argued, accepted only a thin veneer of Christianity, while its basic cosmology, practices and beliefs remained unchanged.
Comment on the ‘leopard’ killings
Authors: McCall J. A. G.
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph

Dr Nwaka, in writing his paper on the ‘man-leopard’ killings of southern Annang, Nigeria, 1943–48, has performed a good public service for Nigeria. During the past few years a number of Nigerians have expressed to me the view that the killings should be written up. Now Dr Nwaka has done just this, and only after a very considerable amount of research, as his extensive references indicate. The fact that I do not accept his main conclusion is not the point. His paper forms the basis for a comprehensive discussion of the circumstances surrounding the killings from 1943 to 1948, and for this we owe him a real debt of gratitude.
W. R. Bascom and the Ife bronzes
Authors: Tignor Robert L.
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph

In 1938 an African building a house in the city of Ife, the cultural capital of the Yorubas and the mythical cradle of Yoruba civilisation, came upon an extraordinary cache of ancient Nigerian bronzes. In all, at least fifteen bronzes were uncovered in 1938 in a compound only 100 yards from the palace of the Oni of Ife. These bronzes were to prove of great historical and artistic significance. Until that time only two other bronzes had been unearthed in the Yoruba area, and one of those had disappeared, leaving Nigeria only a single original and a replica. In the disposition of the priceless new finds there ensued a tale of intrigue, prevarication, outraged nationalism, and narrow-minded ethnocentricism that drew into its maelstrom the British colonial government of Nigeria, the US Consulate in Lagos, and the USA's Department of State. Although the Ife bronzes, which today reside in a handsome if small museum in the city of Ife, are not so well known as, for example, the Elgin marbles or certain other antiquities taken from the Third World, the controversy surrounding their removal from Nigeria and their eventual return was filled with the same emotion and employed the same arguments heard today over the rightful location of national cultural treasures. The Nigerian dispute is made all the more poignant in that one of the major protagonists was not a money-seeking antiquities dealer, but a young American anthropologist destined to be one of the most astute and sympathetic interpreters of Yoruba culture.
Adjustment to West African realities: the Lebanese in Senegal
Authors: Boumedouha Saïd
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph

The century-old Lebanese presence in West Africa has been the subject of mixed reaction from the host societies. While many Africans, including political leaders, have defended this presence in the belief that it has been very beneficial for their countries, others have strongly criticised it, arguing that the Lebanese have blocked the way to Africans in trade, repatriated their capital and used many kinds of malpractices in their trading activities. In Senegal, which is the subject of this article, French small and medium traders opposed the presence of the Lebanese during the colonial period because the latter became their main competitors. The groundnut trade was the country's main economic activity and there was a great demand for this product in Europe. The major European companies were keen to increase exports and, in this, they relied on the Lebanese who, in the first decades of this century, acted as middlemen.
Barma bridewealth: socialization and the reproduction of labour in a domestic african economy
Authors: Reyna S. P.
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph

This essay argues that courtship procedures, of which the giving of bridewealth forms a part, may under certain conditions help to socialize younger men into their mature economic roles. Further, in so far as bridewealth performs these functions, it contributes to the reproduction of labour in these economies.
Did the Akan resort to abortion in pre-colonial Ghana? Some Conjectures
Authors: Bleek Wolf
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph

In his survey of abortion in 400 pre-industrial societies, Devereux (1955: 161) concludes:

…there is every indication that abortion is an absolutely universal phenomenon, and that it is impossible even to construct an imaginary social system in which no woman would ever feel at least impelled to abort.

Where the universality of abortion is equated with the urge to abort, one can hardly disagree with such a statement. The question, however, of whether or not abortion ever actually occurred—or still occurs—ubiquitously and to a demographically significant extent is difficult to answer. Among the Akan in Ghana, where I did anthropological fieldwork intermittently between 1969 and 1973, abortion was widespread, a practice which seemed to have roots in precolonial traditions. People referred to abortion as sɛe adeɛ (‘spoiling the thing’).
Ideologies of royal power: the dissolution and reconstruction of political authority on the ‘Slave Coast’, 1680–1750
Authors: Law Robin
Published: April 2006

The Historical Context: The Crisis of Political Order, 1680–1750

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the ‘Slave Coast’ of West Africa suffered increasingly severe problems of disorder, which seem to have been in large part a consequence of the impact of the Atlantic slave trade. These disorders involved not only wars among the major states but also (in at least some cases) the weakening of political authority within states. The most obvious aspect of this dissolution of authority was the decline in the power of the kingdom of Allada, which had earlier exercised some degree of suzerainty over most if not all of the other states in the area. Among the tributaries of Allada which repudiated its authority was the kingdom of Whydah (Hueda), on the coast to the south-west, which was already effectively independent by the 1680s, and which even went to war with Allada in 1691–92 and again in 1714–17. The kingdom of Fon, or Dahomey, in the interior north of Allada, was originally also a dependency of Allada, but is recorded to have revolted and asserted its independence in 1715.
Possible sources for the origin of gold as an economic and social vehicle for women in lamu (Kenya)
Authors: Romero Patricia W.
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph

Lamu today is composed of several ethnic groups with an affinity for gold: the Afro-Arab old families who intermarried with the BuSaid ruling class from Oman and Zanzibar; Hadrami newcomers from southern Arabia; and the slaves of these groups, all of whom came from central Africa. In addition, there are Bohra Indians (only a few remain of the two hundred or so earlier in the century), two Parsees, and one remaining Ismaili family whose origins in India dictate a desire for gold. Other people, such as Bajuni, are now living in Lamu; but most are poor and the few who have gold are those who have gone to Mombasa or away to school, and then returned. Some of them have married into the heretofore closed ranks of the old Afro-Arab families precisely because they have made money or can be expected to, and will provide gold. There are numbers of other ethnic groups in Lamu, including Africans from the Kenya mainland across the bay from Lamu island. Land, not gold, is important to them. The people of concern here are mainly the Bohra Indians, Afro-Arabs, and the Hadramis – all of whom covet gold. Marriages in Lamu were arranged along ethnic, class, and family lines at least since the nineteenth century. Gold for brides was a necessity – especially for the upper-class Afro-Arab (mixtures of local Africans, African slaves, and Arab traders) families and among the various Indian groups (historically Hindu, Dauudi Bohra, Ithnasharia, Ismaili, and Goans) then living and trading there.
Land and territory: the interface between two systems of land tenure, Murang'a District, Kenya
Authors: Mackenzie Fiona
Published: April 2006

Introduction: ‘Land Reform’ and Rural Security

The objective of this paper is to examine the nature of the interface between two systems of land tenure in an area of smallholdings, Murang'a District, Central Province, Kenya. The first, theng'undusystem, evolved in the fertile, dissected plateau area east of the Nyandarua Range since the Kikuyu migrated there in the early seventeenth century (Muriuki, 1974: 62–82; Government of Kenya, 1929: 6); the second, a freehold system of individual land tenure, was introduced by the colonial state in the mid-1950s as a political instrument to counter the force of Mau Mau (Lamb, 1974; Leys, 1975). The latter system, it was intended, would replace the former, thereby laying the basis for an intensification of African agriculture which was also, under the Swynnerton Plan, to include production for the urban and export markets (Heyer, 1981; House and Killick, 1983). Commitment to this same principle continues to inform present agricultural policy (Government of Kenya, 1984a,Kenya Development Plan 1984–1988, p. 187; 1986,: 88).
Legal insecurity and land conflicts in Mgeta, Uluguru Mountains, Tanzania
Authors: Donge Jan Kees van
Published: April 2006

This article explains why people in Mgeta become locked in long and expensive land disputes. These disputes cannot be explained as rational choice strategies: the value of the land involved bears no relation to the costs people claim to incur: and people have recourse to the State legal arena without any reasonable expectation of a resolution of the conflict there. The explanation offered here is that there is a breakdown in the social definition of reality. The quest for justice is seen as a legal expression of a search for such definition.

The Waluguru reason about land mainly in terms of a matrilineal ideology. This ideology is not, however, an ahistorical identity which gives automatic answers in disputes; it has to be continuously constructed as society copes with social change. The problem cannot be seen as one of cultural lag, where modern forms of law clash with older forms. Case material shows that recourse to individual title, for example, requires as much social construction of reality as recourse to Luguru systems of law. It also shows that these forms of law are inextricably intertwined. The failure to express a social construction of reality which is experienced as authoritative and binding is exacerbated by a vacuum of authority which has emerged in Luguru society.

The obvious force driving these seemingly irrational conflicts is envy. In a situation, as here, where there is a breakdown in the social construction of reality and where a vacuum of authority exists, this disruptive force can manifest itself in unbridled form.
Spiders in and out of Court, or, ‘the long legs of the law: styles of spider divination in their sociological contexts
Authors: Zeitlyn David
Published: April 2006

Both Banen and Mambila in Cameroon use spiders in divination. The intellectual practice of the divinatory technique is related to the different sociological contexts of divination. Relative freedom of interpretation and the posing of questions overnight among the Banen correlate with its political unimportance. Conversely among the Mambila the interpretation of the diviner is rule-bound, and many simple questions may be asked in quick succession. The results provide important evidence in the chief's court. Social context and intellectual content are each constrained but underdetermined by the other.
Transformation and power in Moba (northern Togo) initiation rites
Authors: Kreamer Christine Mullen
Published: April 2006

Among the Moba of northern Togo, initiation into the voluntary and secret association of Kondi offers men and women a way of achieving a measure of social and ritual power. For the Moba, accepted notions about ancestral authority, specialist knowledge, and the spatial realm of the wilderness inform their concepts of power. One of the ways in which the achievement of power is conceptualised is through the transformation of the individual during the process of initiation into Kondi. Following the tripartite structure of separation, transition and reintegration, Kondi initiation directs the individual through the movement of social space as the initiate's status is transformed from that of a newborn to that of an adult in the community. This transformative process is reinforced in the spatial domains of bush and village in which initiation takes place and in the kinds of dress worn during the various phases of initiation which signal the initiate's dissociation and association with the community. Through the acquisition of esoteric knowledge available only to the initiated, and through the approval of the ancestors who sanction Kondi, members of the secret association are distinguishedfrom the non-initiated and enjoy a measure of power and authority in Moba communities.
Making up their own minds: readers, interpretations and the difference of view in Ghanaian popular narratives
Authors: Newell Stephanie
Published: April 2006

Reading is a situated ‘social event’, taking place in the context of collective ‘assumptions about language and meaning’ which condition an individual's interpretations. Before turning the first page of a popular novel, or watching the first scene of a theatrical performance, the ‘reader’ already occupies a culturally specific receptive position, and each instance of interpretation is likely to be informed by shared preconceptions about the function of literature.

The role of readers is essential to the discussion of popular narratives in West Africa. Authors acknowledge the readership's participation in the co-creation of novels, to such an extent that plots themselves may be transformed or extended in response to letters from readers. By taking sides with the character type whose social position most closely resembles their own, readers select specific figures through whom they can apportion praise and blame, through whom they can confirm their own opinions about men's and women's domestic roles. Readers adopt interpretive positions that depend upon the relevance of fictional types to their storehouse of opinions about marriage partners, ‘good-time girls’, mothers-in-law, ‘sugar-daddies’ and prostitutes.

A reader-centred perspective, then, is vital to complement the ‘straight’ literary analysis of popular narratives. Indeed, one could say that, without the interpretive input of readers, West African popular fiction is nothing. Readers cannot be homogenised into a single species: during the reception process, distinct, preconstituted reading communities rise up, identifying ‘themselves’ in the narrative as gendered social subjects and extrapolating opinions from the text. In this receptive environment, popular narratives take on the semblance of rafts rather than shipwrecks, conveying and buoying up readers' active, self-interested reconstructions of themselves.
Making children, making chiefs: gender, power and ritual legitimacy
Authors: Sanders Todd
Published: April 2006

This article explores indigenous notions of power and chiefly legitimacy among the Ihanzu, a relatively small Bantu-speaking community located in north central Tanzania. Particular attention is paid to local ideas and ideals of gender—that is, the cultural categories ‘male’ and ‘female’, as well as the relationship between them—in an effort to show the complex ways in which gender categories, when combined, are powerful and capable of effecting transformations of different sorts. Men and women, by combining male and female fertilising fluids, create children. Similarly, male and female chiefs, through royal incest, bring forth male and female rains. It is suggested that the strategic combination of the cultural categories ‘male’ and ‘female’ provides the underlying transformative model both for sexual reproduction and for rainmaking. And it is through the combination of gender categories that chiefs legitimise their own positions, first by producing rain and, second, by metaphorically giving birth to all Ihanzu people each season. But whether for chiefs or commoners, it is argued that power frequently comes in gendered pairs.
Democracy and realism: reflections on the case of Cote d'Ivoire
Authors: Fauré Yves
Published: April 2006

Before independence the PDCI had considerable experience of participating in elections. Even with the setting-up of a de facto one-party state, elections remained a useful device in the hands of the PDCI leadership to renew the composition of the ruling elite, particularly after the 1980 reforms. A combination of external and internal pressures in the 1990s ensured that a multi-party system would be adopted but Houphouet-Boigny was able to guide the electoral process to ensure continued success for his own party. Despite this and the many inadequacies of the electoral administration there has been a real political change. Cote d'lvoire has embarked on a process of democratisation that will eventually bring other social and political benefits.
Kickin' it: leisure, politics and football in colonial Zanzibar, 1900s–1950s
Authors: Fair Laura
Published: April 2006

As C. L. R. James demonstrated inBeyond a Boundary, organised team sports epitomised the colonial attempt to inculcate hierarchy, stability and discipline into the minds and spirits of the colonised. These values were not, however, passively internalised. Taken as a microcosm of the colonial experience, this study of football in Zanzibar illustrates the limits of Europeans' ability to mould Africans' social experiences. Sport in Zanzibar, as elsewhere in the empire, often carried undertones of conflict and at times became overtly political. Yet football represented much more than a political battlefield to the players and spectators. For men in colonial Zanzibar playing and watching football were often central social experiences. This article explores the diversity of meanings attributed to football in 1900–50.
Cultivating biological and cultural diversity: urban farming in Casamance, Senegal
Authors: Linares Olga F.
Published: April 2006

At the present time, urban agriculture—that is, the growing of food crops in backyard gardens, unused city spaces and peripheral zones—is an economically viable alternative for many African migrants. Although previously ‘invisible’ to most developers and economists, urban farming is now recognised as playing a crucial subsistence role in the household economies of lower-income people living in major West African cities. But the practice does more than feed the urban poor. Using the example of Ziguinchor in Casamance, Senegal, it is argued that growing crops in peri-urban and intra-urban zones, on otherwise neglected or half-built-up land, also protects and enriches the city environment while increasing the primary productivity of the inhabitants. Directly, or in more subtle ways, the practice strengthens bonds of friendship, and promotes inter-ethnic co-operation while at the same time helping to maintain biological complexity in interesting and previously unexplored ways. City farming may provide a context through which the urban poor can relate to debates about biodiversity.
The Shakers
Authors: Heim Sibyl R.
Published: April 2006

The Shaker movement in this country as a socio-religious separatist venture, was representative of the character and growth of America. The single minded community, devoted to a particular ideal, reflects a major aspect of America's early social character. The various religious communities, whether Quaker, Shaker, Brook Farm, transcendental or other, were manifestations of a spirit which was fostered by conditions in a new world.
A Reply to Snider
Authors: Hallahan Daniel P. , Lloyd John Wills
Published: April 2006

We appreciate Snider's willingness to allow us to respond to her critique of our self-monitoring research. Because some of her concerns have been addressed to us previously by others, we are pleased to take this opportunity to clarify our stance regarding the value of self-monitoring of attention. Specifically, we are going to respond to six areas of Snider's article: (a) the educational relevance of current theoretical conceptualizations of attention, (b) the issue of improving attentional versus academic behavior, (c) the type of student for whom self-monitoring of attention is most appropriate, (d) the educational relevance of the academic productivity effects found in our studies, (e) issues relating to use of single-subject designs, and (f) the importance of self-monitoring accuracy.
A Response to Hallahan and Lloyd
Authors: Snider Vicki E.
Published: April 2006

I welcome the opportunity to participate in this open exchange of ideas regarding the use of self-monitoring procedures with learning disabled children. Hallahan and Lloyd's reply suggests that the difference between our points of view is not substantive, but rather a matter of emphasis. Thus, Hallahan and Lloyd emphasize the importance of strategy training, whereas I stress the importance of effective curricula as a prerequisite to instruction in metacognitive strategies. Instructional variables are often ignored; however, excellent curricula cannot be taken for granted. Insight and experience are required to design integrated curricula that maximize learning by assuring that students know what to pay attention to. I will briefly respond to each of Hallahan and Lloyd's six points (see p. 153).
LD Consultant Information in Mainstreaming: Help Or Hindrance?
Authors: Safran Stephen P. , Barcikowski Robert S.
Published: April 2006

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of information commonly disseminated by consultants on teacher expectations for mainstreamed LD students. After receiving varying combinations of positive and negative communications in the areas of reading achievement, classroom behavior and learning style, subjects completed the Regular Educator Expectancy Scale-Revised — an instrument developed to measure four areas of mainstreaming (Instruction, Effects on Others, Effects on the Child, and Behavior Management Strategies). Results indicated that teachers were differentially influenced according to the type of information received. Implications for the LD consultant are discussed.
Vocabulary Instruction: Effects on Word Knowledge and Reading Comprehension
Authors: Pany Darlene , Jenkins Joseph R. , Schreck Janice
Published: April 2006

Three experiments were conducted to assess the effects of vocabulary instruction on word knowledge and reading comprehension. Treatments varied in the amount of direct instruction, ranging from meaning derivation from context to drill on synonyms. In Experiment 1, subjects were “average” fourth-grade readers, whereas subjects in Experiments 2 and 3 were learning disabled and remedial readers.

Results of Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that the treatments were differentially effective in teaching synonyms for unfamiliar words. More meanings were acquired as a result of increased direct instruction. Average students learned some word synonyms under all conditions except a noninstructional control condition. However, learning disabled students acquired fewer meanings across all conditions and seemed to require more direct instruction in order to produce learning. In both experiments, procedures which were differentially effective in teaching synonyms also produced differential transfer to sentence comprehension.

The third experiment examined the effect of vocabulary instruction on comprehension of connected discourse. Again, vocabulary training transferred to comprehension of single sentences; however, on two of three measures of passage comprehension no effects were observed that were attributable to vocabulary instruction.
Effect of Reinforcement on Modality of Stimulus Control in Learning Disabled Students
Authors: Koorland Mark A. , Wolking William D.
Published: April 2006

Pre-existing preference for stimulus modality is often claimed to control performance on short-term memory tasks. The present experiment evaluated the effects of reinforcement contingencies on task performance of bisensory missing words. Subjects included one learning disabled (LD) male with an auditory preference and one LD female with a visual preference on short-term memory tasks that presented both visual and auditory stimuli. Reinforcement contingencies were found to control both subjects' performances. Results imply that reinforcement variables may account for consistency in a subject's visual or auditory stimulus-controlled performance.
94–142 — The Perspective of Regular Education
Authors: Ryor John
Published: April 2006

Since its passage in 1975, much has been written about PL 94–142 and its implications for the learning disabled. The majority of articles published in special education journals and other literature have been authored by special educators and, thus, they are usually presented from a special education perspective. In light of the obvious impact of PL 94–142 on all of education, there is merit in viewing the law from a different perspective. Consequently, the Quarterly invited Dr. John Ryor, President of the National Education Association, to discuss PL 94–142 from the perspective of the regular educator. His article addresses some of the major concerns as well as the expectations of the regular educator in regard to PL 94–142. The points raised by Ryor in this article have important implications for the professional in learning disabilities.
Microcomputers and Computer-Assisted Instruction in Special Classrooms: Do we Need the Teacher?
Authors: Carlson Steven A. , Silverman Rita
Published: April 2006

As microcomputers in special education classrooms become increasingly common, teachers are faced with having to make decisions about when, under what conditions, and with whom to use microcomputers. This is particularly true when teachers are considering the use of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) with students expected to learn essential skills. In this article the microcomputer is presented as an important but currently limited piece of instructional technology. Guidelines for deciding when and how CAI should be used are offered with an emphasis on the teacher's role as decision maker and instructional manager.
Strategy Instruction at Benchmark School: A Faculty Interview Study
Authors: Pressley Michael , Gaskins Irene W. , Cunicelli Elizabeth A , Burdick Nancy J. , Schaub-Matt Margaret , Lee Deborah S. , Powell Nancy
Published: April 2006

Despite the vast amount of research on cognitive strategy instruction in recent years, few studies have focused on academic strategies taught in school settings over a long time. The interview study reported here tapped the understandings and beliefs about strategy instruction of 31 classroom teachers experienced in strategy instruction and 9 strategy researchers. Though the two groups were generally in agreement about the components of strategy instruction and when to include these components in teaching, significant differences were discovered that merit consideration as part of a comprehensive strategy instruction model.
Visual Imagery Skills and Language Abilities of Normal and Language-Learning-Disabled Children
Authors: Whitmire Beverly M. , Stone C. Addison
Published: April 2006

This study was designed to explore the relation between specific language skills and visual imagery skills of children with language disabilities. The subjects were 15 language-learning-disabled (LLD) and 15 normally achieving children (aged 6–6 to 8–9) with nonverbal IQ scores in the average range. All subjects' language skills were measured by the Test of Language Development-Primary (TOLD-P). Subjects were also presented with three multiple-choice tasks involving the imagined movement and/or rotation of geometric figures. An analysis of covariance (controlling for perceptual discrimination of the task designs) showed a significant difference between groups in accuracy of performance on the imagery tasks. For the LLD group, a significant positive correlation was found between the severity of the language disability (TOLD-P total score) and accuracy on two of the three imagery tasks (with nonverbal IQ controlled). Imagery ability was found to be related more strongly to a measure of semantics than to syntax. Performance on one imagery task was also related significantly to reading achievement. Implications of imagery deficits for academic performance are discussed in terms of the value of imaging for comprehension.
Generalization of Creative Productive-Thinking Training to LD Students' Written Expression
Authors: Fortner Virginia L.
Published: April 2006

This study examined whether intermediate-grade LD students could generalize creativity training to increase competency on a spontaneous writing task. The investigation used seven intact classrooms to analyze differences between groups on initial creative productive-thinking level, measured by Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) subtest Tin Can: Unusual Uses. Mean difference scores were compared for number of (a) words, (b) thought units, (c) subordinate clauses, (d) vocabulary, and (e) thematic maturity on the story subtest of the Test of Written Language (TOWL) given before and after training in New Directions in Creativity (NDC).

A nonequivalent control-group design was used. Teachers administered the TTCT and TOWL pre- and posttests to 49 subjects in self-contained LD classrooms. Teachers of a 25-member experimental (E) group also conducted NDC intervention, including nonjudgmental brainstorming activities, three times per week for nine weeks. Analysis of covariance results revealed that, after creative productive-thinking training, the E group significantly improved (p < .05) in number of thought units, subordinate clauses, and thematic maturity. The results of this initial probe should impact upon training of teachers of LD students.
Behavior-Problem Patterns among the Learning Disabled: III — Replication across Age and Sex
Authors: Epstein Michael H. , Cullinan Douglas , Lloyd John Wills
Published: April 2006

Teachers completed rating scales on learning disabled male and female students ranging in age from 6 to 18 years. Responses were factor-analyzed to identify characteristic behavior problems of the learning disabled. While replicating findings from previous studies, the results revealed some important differences, that is, problems found to be characteristic of the learning disabled students differed according to sex and age level. These findings have implications for understanding the nature of learning disabilities and for designing appropriate educational programs for learning disabled students.
Differences in Learning Disabled and Average Students' Classroom Behaviors
Authors: Slate John R. , Saudargas Richard A.
Published: April 2006

The regular classroom behaviors of learning disabled and average fourth-and fifth-grade males were observed for an average of 80 minutes per student. Multiple-regression and discriminant-analysis procedures were used to ascertain which behaviors best discriminated among the two subject groups. A multiple regression revealed 11 behaviors, accounting for 71% of the variance. Separate discriminant analyses were run on child behaviors, teacher behaviors, and child and teacher behaviors combined. Only the teacher behaviors and the combination of child and teacher behaviors produced significant results. No child behaviors were found to discriminate between the two groups. Implications are drawn for assessment of learning disabled students.
Consistency of Learning Disabled Students' Spelling Performance
Authors: DeMaster Vicki K. , Crossland Cathy L. , Hasselbring Ted S.
Published: April 2006

Spelling accuracy and error patterns were assessed to determine the consistency of learning disabled subjects' spelling performance on varying forms of word presentations. A dictated word list assessment and a dictated paragraph assessment were administered to 20 learning disabled students in third through sixth grade. A detailed error analysis, based on phonetic principles and predictable generalizations, was performed on all misspelled words. Results indicated that the learning disabled subjects' spelling accuracy was consistent across the two dictation formats. This consistency did not vary greatly between good and poor spellers. Comparisons of the two forms of dictated presentations revealed that the specific types of spelling errors demonstrated also were quite consistent. Such error-pattern consistency indicates that the learning disabled subjects utilized systematic approaches to spelling dictated words. Hence, the findings support the use of diagnostic error-analysis techniques with learning disabled students, as well as a structured approach to the teaching of spelling related to orthography patterns.
Learning Disability vs. Reading Disability: A Survey of Practitioners' Diagnostic Populations and Test Instruments
Authors: German Diane , Johnson Barbara , Schneider Mary
Published: April 2006

This investigation focused on reading and learning disability professionals' diagnostic practices when assessing reading disorders. The Learning Disability/Reading Disability Questionnaire constructed by the researchers was used to investigate and compare the diagnostic practices among three professional groups: 74 self-contained learning disabilities specialists, 141 resource learning disabilities specialists, and 118 reading resource specialists. These professionals' positions are presented here on such issues as nature of diagnostic populations serviced, diagnostic tests employed, informational sources utilized, and diagnostic factors considered in typical assessments of reading disorders. Although the groups differed with respect to each of these issues, similarities did emerge. All groups identified language deficits as a characteristic of their diagnostic population, both types of professionals utilized tests of reading potential and reading skills, and all three groups considered causality, strengths and weaknesses, and language deficits to be important in the diagnosis of reading disorders. Educational implications of the findings are noted.
Activating the Inactive Learner: Use of Questions/Prompts to Enhance Comprehension and Retention of Implied Information in Learning Disabled Children
Authors: Wong Bernice Y. L.
Published: April 2006

This article reports the findings of two studies involving comprehension and retention of implied information in learning disabled and normally achieving second and sixth graders. In the first study, evidence was obtained of inadequate processing of implied information in learning disabled children in both grades. In the second study, a simple questions/prompts procedure brought about improved/adequate processing of implied information in new, comparable groups of learning disabled second and sixth graders. The results were interpreted to support Torgesen's conceptualization of the learning disabled child as an inactive learner. Lastly, educational implications of the results were discussed.
Predicting First-Grade Reading Achievement
Authors: Busch Robert F.
Published: April 2006

The purpose of this study was to determine the best combination of tests or subtests in a research battery which, when administered to beginning first-grade students, would enable the most efficient prediction of reading achievement. One thousand fifty-two children were randomly selected from all first-grade classrooms within the state of Missouri. The research battery consisted of: the Cognitive Abilities Tests; the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration; the Pre-Reading Screening Procedures; the Stanford Early School Achievement Test; the Alphabet and Numbers subtest of the Metropolitan Readiness Tests; the Boehm Test of Basic Concepts; and the Behavior Rating Scale. The criterion measure used was the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests. The findings of this study led to the following conclusions: 1) the ability to recognize upper-and lower-case letters and beginning sounds was the best single predictor of reading achievement; 2) measured intelligence, when compared statistically to the other variables in the study, was the second best predictor of reading achievement; and 3) classroom teachers are able to assist in the prediction of their students' end-of-year reading achievement through the use of the Behavior Rating Scale.
The Relationship among Correct and Error Oral Reading Rates and Comprehension
Authors: Roberts Michael , Smith Deborah Deutsch
Published: April 2006

Eight learning disabled boys participated in the study. All were seriously deficient in both their oral reading and comprehension performances. Through a series of multiple baseline and crossover designs, the relationships among enhanced correct reading rates and comprehension, decreased error reading rates and comprehension, and increased comprehension and oral reading were studied. Each time an intervention was scheduled, the desired changes were noted for the targeted variable. Improvement, however, in either correct rate or error rate scores produced only mild increases in comprehension. Interestingly, when comprehension was targeted, correct and error rate scores also were at desirable levels.
Career Education for the Learning Disabled — Where are we Now?
Authors: Mori Allen A.
Published: April 2006

Meeting the unique career education needs of the learning disabled requires appropriate, systematic models for career education development. Currently, few such programs are available because of the reluctance of secondary learning disabilities teachers to abandon the remedial academic model. The author traces some of the current trends in career education for the learning disabled and presents a model for providing career education to secondary learning disabled students.
The Effects of Directed Study on the Spelling Performance of Two Subgroups of Learning Disabled Students
Authors: Foster Kelli , Torgesen Joseph K.
Published: April 2006

This study investigated the response of two different subgroups of learning disabled children to variations in study conditions as they prepared for a spelling test. The study conditions were: (a) free study, in which the children studied lists of words in any manner they chose; and (b) directed study, in which all children were required to engage in the same number of repetitive spellings of the word lists. The three groups of eight subjects each included a normal control group, a group of LD children with severe short-term memory problems, and a group of LD children with normal short-term memory performance. The directed study condition was found to have a significant effect on the spelling performance only of the LD children without short-term memory deficits. While the results illustrate that some LD children's spelling performance may be improved by simply altering the way they approach tasks, the findings also suggest that other LD children may need a different kind of educational support.
Linguistic and Metacognitive Aspects of Normally Achieving and Learning Disabled Children's Communication Process
Authors: Olsen Janet L. , Wong Bernice Y.L. , Marx Ronald W.
Published: April 2006

This paper reports on two experiments which examined the linguistic and metacognitive aspects of the communication process in normally achieving and learning disabled children.

In the first experiment, 15 normally achieving and 30 learning disabled children were individually taught a board game. Results showed that in communicating with a partner, learning disabled children were less aware of sociolinguistic strategy and used fewer planfulness strategies than their normally achieving peers. Moreover, they used substantially fewer tag questions, adverbs, and prepositional phrases. These results confirmed previous research findings on learning disabled children's communication problems.

In the second experiment, 15 of the learning disabled children were trained to use sociolinguistic strategies of planfulness for one half hour a day for three days. The remaining 15 LD subjects engaged in an irrelevant task. Posttests followed training. To test for maintenance and generalization of learned skills, the trained group was asked to teach the board game and another game to a peer and a first grader four days after the posttest.

Results indicated that training increased learning disabled children's sociolinguistic awareness and their use of sociolinguistic strategies of planfulness. Interestingly, the trained group's language increased in complexity after training. While use of pragmatic strategies was maintained, generalization of the trained skills and of the changes in linguistic complexity was not observed. Results suggest the need to continue research on learning disabled children's language problems and the importance of incorporating self-regulatory strategies in training programs designed to improve learning disabled children's communication skills.
A Comparison of the Proportional Reasoning Abilities of Learning Disabled and Non-Learning Disabled Children and Adolescents
Authors: Sinicrope Rose , Mick Lori Bell
Published: April 2006

Noelting's (1980a, 1980b) three parallel instruments on proportional reasoning—two presenting problem-solving tasks in the ratio and division interpretations of fractions and one presenting the tasks in the purely symbolic form of numerical fractions—were administered to 6 female and 41 male learning disabled students, grades four through eight. Performances on the instruments were then compared to the performances of 120 non-learning disabled students in grades five through nine of the same school district. The purpose of the study was to determine whether learning disabled students differed in their development of proportional reasoning and whether their disability was in the use of symbols and language and not in their ability to solve proportional problems. Developmental scalograms, PPR>0.93, resulted in support of the hypothesis that the proportional reasoning abilities of the learning disabled student are developmental and thus not unlike those of the non-learning disabled student. A comparison of the three means for the two groups revealed a reversal in performance with the learning disabled students more successful at problem solving and the non-learning disabled students more successful at the purely symbolic form of numerical fractions. Unlike the non-learning disabled students, the learning disabled students' inability to express a strategy did not indicate an inability to solve the problem.
Sociometric Status, Behavior Ratings, and Social Knowledge of Learning Disabled and Low-Achieving Students
Authors: Bursuck William D.
Published: April 2006

A significant relationship between academic achievement and peer popularity has long been established. Nonetheless, the role of achievement in mediating social differences between learning disabled children and their nondisabled peers remains unclear. The goal of this research was to clarify the contribution of academic achievement to learning disabled children's social competence. Third and fourth-grade LD boys were compared to a group of low-achieving, third and fourth graders matched on sex, race, grade, classroom and reading achievement. No significant differences were found between these two groups in terms of levels of classroom acceptance, social knowledge, and social behavior as rated by their regular classroom teachers. Likely variables accounting for these results are discussed as well as directions for future research.