Cognitive Strategies for Teaching the Mildly Handicapped

As recently as • 2 years ago researchers were speculating about the applications of cognitive training to the classroom and warning that although this area of investigation had yielded promising results, the lack of careful research on actual applications was cause for caution in utilizing such approaches (Cavanaugh & Perlmutter, 1982;Gerber, 1983;Kendall & Mason, 1982).In her review of the research on cognitive behavior modification, Harris ( 1982) outlined the course that research has taken and the implications of that research for future application in the classroom.Since that review, significant progress has been made through research applying cognitive strategies to areas such as attention and memory, academic achievement, and strategic learning (Keogh, 1983).For several reasons, the results of this classroom-related research are of interest to the practitioner working with midly handicapped students.First, teachers have long been aware of students' lack of success in applying what they were taught in the resource room to the regular classroom and in generalizing those skills from one task to another (Schumaker, Deshler, Alley, & Warner, 1983).Some researchers believe that this inability to transfer learning results from an inherent passivity in learning dis:.abled (LO) students' approach to academic tasks (Torgesen, 1979;Wong, 1982), and from lack of systematic planning for skills application activities to facilitate generalization (Meichenbaum, 1983).Several investigators advocate the inclusion of metacognitive training in the instructional program as a critical element of such planning (Brown & Smiley, 1978;Meichenbaum, 1983;Sheinker, Sheinker, & Stevens, 1983).Second, researchers have noted that LO students appear to reach a learning plateau in high school that is equivalent to about a fourth or fifth grade achievement level (Deshler, Schumaker, Alley, Warner, & Clark, 1982~ Schumaker, Deshler, Alley, & Warner: 1983).Interestingly, this achievement level is the point at which basic skills