Specific Learning Disabilities

Recommended Prerequisites

None

 

Teaching Methods

Lecturing; case studies; errors evaluation exercises; training with assessment and intervention material; planning of intervention programs

Learning Outcomes

- to know and to understand the diversity and the complexity of the specific learning disabilities;

- to characterize each one of the learning disabilities;

- to know methods and techniques of psycho-pedagogical evaluation aimed to the identification of the specific learning disabilities;

- to know learning disabilities intervention programs;

- to analyze specific evidence-based intervention methods and techniques in learning disabilities

- to evaluate learning disabilities

- to plan educational interventions aimed to the specific learning disabilities and adjusted to the specificity of each particular case.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. Introduction: Specific learning disabilities definition; from a clinical to a educational model centered in the response to the intervention

2. Reading – decoding, fluency and comprehension disabilities. Dyslexia: diagnosis, typologies, and etiology; assessment and reading errors evaluation

3. Writing – motor, phonological and orthography processing, and text composition disabilities. Diagnosis and reeducation

4. Non-verbal disabilities – distinction between verbal and non-verbal learning disabilities. Non-verbal learning disabilities characterization

4.1. Mathematic – counting, number combination, arithmetic, and problem solving disabilities. Dyscalculia: characterization and etiologies. Diagnosis and reeducation

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Exam (100%) or Midtern exam (60%) + Other (40%): 100.0%

Bibliography

-Cain, K., & Oakhill, J. (2007). Children’s comprehension problems in oral and written language. A cognitive perspective. New York: The Guilford Press.

-MacArthur, C. A., Graham, S., & Fitzgerald, J. (Eds.) (2006). Handbook of writing research. New York: Guilford Press.

Sprenger-Charolles, L., & Cole, P. (2013) (2ème ed.). Lecture et dyslexie. Paris: Dunod.

-Swanson, L., Harris, K. R., & Graham, S. (Eds.) (2013). Handbook of Learning Disabilities (2nd ed.). NY: Guilford Press.

-Tanguay, P. B. (2002). Dificuldades de aprendizagem não verbais na escola (I. M. P. H. Soares, Trad.). Porto: Porto Editora.