Dr. Brad Hale's response (and cited articles) on LD definition and assessment: Guest Blog post

Dr. Brad Hale has been generous in providing access to a number of white papers, journal publications, etc., that reflect the current debate on the definition and assessment of learning disabilities. On listservs he is constantly asked to provide copies or links to the articles. As a result of a recent interchange on a professional listserv, I asked Dr. Hale if he would like to have his most recent response posted at a blog so he (and others) could be directed to one source for the information. He agreed. Thus, below is Dr. Hale's recent response "as is." The only changes I made were to embed his URL's in text. I consider this a "guest blog" post.

While I have people's attention, I would like to reiterate my offer to make others for guest blog posts regarding topics relevant to IQ's Corner.
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As written by Dr. Brad Hale



Thanks to those who have asked for the white paper and Forest Grove v. TA articles backchannel, and forgive my impersonal reply to the list. Both articles are available online free of charge, so I am providing the links here. I will send my Essentials chapter about how to do a strengths and weaknesses approach, step-by-step, backchannel to those interested for their personal use.

The Forrest Grove v. TA Supreme Court case article, published in the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, has undergone peer review. It was also meticulously scrutinized by probably one of the most prominent education law attorneys in America, Pete Wright (Wrightslaw), for its legal accuracy (he is a co-author). It can be found here:


The White Paper is published in the journal Learning Disabilities Quarterly, and underwent peer review. It includes a substantial literature, a majority of which was written by the 58 co-authors, who are prominent cognitive and neuropsychological researchers and leaders in the field of learning disabilities, special education, and neuropsychology. It is available here

An earlier version, published as a position statement by the Learning Disabilities Association of America can be found here

Readers should also know there was a rebuttal to the LDA (not the LDQ) paper, and some of their critcisms are directed at the LDA President's statements, not ours. But a majority of their criticisms are directed at our LDA paper or the authors on our paper. The criticism against our authors is they have a conflict of interest (e.g., selling tests), and the assumption is that this conflict led to our position. It should be known that very few of the authors (about 8 of the 58 authors) have this conflict of interest, but nonetheless, it is the major argument against the legitimacy of our position (the first one they present I believe).

It should also be known that this rebuttal paper has not undergone peer review, is not published in a scholarly journal, and includes no references to support its claims (hence the unchecked facts and rhetoric), but it IS signed by many people who oppose our arguments, including those opposed to cognitive and neuropsychological assessment for identification of LD, and/or supporters of RTI.

I have publicly suggested to advocates/writers of this rebuttal paper that they provide the references to support their claims, and submit the paper for peer-review in a scholarly journal, as we had done, but to my knowledge this has not occurred. Once again, I encourage them to take this important next step, as this will add legitimacy to their criticisms and further their position.

Best,
Brad

James B. Hale, Ph.D., ABPdN
Associate Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology
University of Victoria


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