The relationships between specific learning disability attributes and written language: A study of the performance of learning disabled high school subjects completing the TOWL-3

Many learning disabled students are not given accommodations for extended time to complete in-class exams because they have not been diagnosed with visual-motor processing speed deficits. While much has been learned about the existence of different learning disabilities and the challenges face by learning disabled students, statistical weaknesses in visual-motor processing speed remain the primary benchmark to determine the delivery of accommodations for time to complete in-class and standardized exams.; A study was conducted using 67 learning disabled subjects from public and private high schools, including the completion of a complex, timed writing task (Test of Written Language - Third Edition), and whether or not subjects took additional time to complete the task. Each subject selected exhibited one or more of four learning disability attributes---executive functioning, visual-motor processing speed, visual spatial reasoning, and short-term auditory memory---diagnosed through psychometric tests, including the Wechsler scales and the Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery, Third Edition. Demographics (gender, grade, age, and school type) and learning disability attributes were compared with different areas of written language (vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling, etc.), the subjects' completion of the task on time, and/or the amount of additional time taken.; While no single attribute yielded significant findings with the completion of the task on time or the level of improvement, the majority of the subjects took additional time and their scores on the task improved significantly, indicating a relationship between learning disabilities and the completion of academic tasks within an allotted time frame. Additional findings were noted between specific subtests of the Wechsler scales and the Woodcock-Johnson and the completion of the task on time as well as the level of improvement. Finally, an average among the four visual-motor processing speed tasks of the Wechsler and Woodcock-Johnson batteries was created, and results indicated that a tendency to collapse these test results into "false averages" does not bear a positive relationship with performance under timed constraints, indicating that this is not an appropriate practice in the determination of accommodations.