The Learning-Disabilities Test Battery: Empirical and Social Issues

In an extensive review of validation studies on the ten most frequently recommended procedures used for diagnosing learning disabilities, Gerald Coles evaluates the special knowledge claims made by learning-disabilities specialists. Finding that these procedures often lack a sound empirical base, he then explores why children continue to be diagnosed and labeled as learning disabled. Coles concludes that specialists in the field have resorted to biological explanations for institutional failures, focusing our attention, concern, and attempts at remediation on the child rather than on the social context in which that child must perform.