Improving the Effectiveness of Strategy Training for Learning Disabled Students: The Role of Communicational Dynamics

After much initial promise, signs of disillusionment are evident concerning the potential of strategy training as an effective method for instilling stable and general cognitive strategic skills in learning disabled students. It is argued here that the difficulties confronted by researchers and practitioners in designing effective instructional programs may relate in part to a neglect of the communicational dynamics of the strategy training situation. Greater attention to these dynamics has implications for how we structure strategy instruction and for our sensitivity to the role of learner characteristics as mediators of strategy training efforts. Recent theoretical and empirical work relevant to the role of communication in effective strategy training is reviewed, and implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.