Conceptual and Educational Implications of the Use of Efficient Task Strategies by Learning Disabled Children

This paper presents evidence that learning disabled children, like other groups that show performance deficiencies, do not spontaneously employ appropriate task strategies in a variety of situations. Thus their low performance on many tasks is attributable to failure to engage in certain kinds of goal-directed activities rather than to structural or capacity limitations. This concept of performance problems in learning disabled children has important potential implications for educational practice. The last section of this paper is devoted to a consideration of the additional kinds of information needed to fully assess the applicability of the basic research to classroom procedures.