Learning Disability Rating Scale Of The Second To Fifth Grade, Shanghai Revised Report

In this research, the author introduced in turn the conceptual definition, the operational definition, and methods of Learning Disabilities (LD) assessment in the history of America. The author especially presented two most popular definition at present, the definition by U.S. Office of Education (USOE)(1976,1977), and by National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD)(1988). In the foreword,the author summarized criticism of model of LD assessment--discrepancy betweenability and academic achievement--which has been adopted by most of resear -chers so far, and gave some constructive suggestion.In China, in view of being badly short of system of LD assessment, in order to improve the present condition, the author decided to make an attempt. The introduced Learning Disability Evaluation Scale (school version) was developed by Ed Dr. Stephen B. McCarney. There are 88 items in the scale, including 7 subscales, Listening, Thinking, Speaking, Reading, Writing, Spelling, and Mathematics Calculation. With the present scale we may assess the extent of LD, and provide full and immediate information about learning, which overcame defects of current LD assessment systems--"assessment for assessment, not for education".The research was to revise and preliminarily employed the scale. 416 subjects (including average students and LD students) was selected at random from 2 to 5 grade in 5 elementary schools in the city of Shanghai. Class supervisors was asked to rate these students according the current scale, and provide final academic achievements of Chinese and mathematics. 45 subjects selected at random was re-rated after 3 weeks. The results suggested, (1) the response pattern of the item is good; (2) the internal consistency reliability and test-retest reliability of the scale is excellent. (3) the current scale has very good construct validity, criterion-related validity and content validity. (4) difference exists between male and female, and among the four grades in all the 7 subscales, but no time effect exists in LD.The present research gives good foundation to application of Learning Disability Evaluation Scale (school version) in China. And we will continue to revise the scale and try to make it perfect in our future research.