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relationship between gender, laterality, brain dominance, and learning-disabled labeling of selected elementary school-aged students in Dade County, Florida

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Date Issued:
1989
Summary:
Problem. The major purpose of this research was to identify right-hemispheric elementary-aged male students who are being labeled as learning disabled. Secondly, to find learning and teaching strategies that would assist these students in re-entering and progressing academically in the regular-self-contained elementary classroom. Subjects used. Subjects were from an LD gifted student population at Cutler Ridge Elementary School in Dade County, Florida. Twenty-one students were in the research study. An experimental and a control group were randomly assigned from this LD gifted group of students ranging from second to fifth graders. Findings and conclusions. There were two major questions to be answered in the study: (1) Is there any relationship between gender, laterality, brain dominance, and being placed in LD programs? (2) Is there a curriculum, a method or a strategy of teaching that will accommodate the right-brain student once he is identified? Assessment tools used to answer the first question or test the first hypothesis were a Teacher observation Checklist for Handedness, and the Style of Learning and Thinking (SOLAT) hemisphericity test for elementary-aged children by Paul Torrance and published by Scholastic Testing Services. Using a chi-square test of proportions, it was determined that there is a correlation between gender, laterality, brain dominance, and LD placement. In order to answer the second question regarding assisting these students (once they are identified) to re-enter and progress academically in the regular self-contained elementary classroom, a treatment of ten learning activities was developed and administered over a period of ten weeks for one hour per week. At the conclusion of the treatment, a post-test was administered by using the Matrix Analogies Test--Short Form by J. Naglieri and published by the Psychological Corporation. A differences between means of hypothesis tests was performed and the Z scores of the means of the percentile ranks, stanines, and age equivalents showed no significant difference in academic performance between the experimental and control group. Therefore, a treatment curriculum or strategy for teaching the right-brain male was not found or clearly defined. Recommendations. (1) Right-brain students should remain in regular classroom situations where they will have a support team to determine that they will be accommodated in the regular classroom. (2) Educational efforts and finances should be a concern and should support a holistic approach to teaching children in order to keep the curriculum from being unbalanced with a left-brain orientation. (3) Future teachers should be prepared with a knowledge base for teaching right-brain students. (4) Further efforts to discover curriculum strategies for teaching right-brain children are needed.
Title: The relationship between gender, laterality, brain dominance, and learning-disabled labeling of selected elementary school-aged students in Dade County, Florida.
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Name(s): Morrison, Lorena Ann Prosser.
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Pyle, Wilma J., Thesis advisor
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Issuance: monographic
Date Issued: 1989
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 123 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: Problem. The major purpose of this research was to identify right-hemispheric elementary-aged male students who are being labeled as learning disabled. Secondly, to find learning and teaching strategies that would assist these students in re-entering and progressing academically in the regular-self-contained elementary classroom. Subjects used. Subjects were from an LD gifted student population at Cutler Ridge Elementary School in Dade County, Florida. Twenty-one students were in the research study. An experimental and a control group were randomly assigned from this LD gifted group of students ranging from second to fifth graders. Findings and conclusions. There were two major questions to be answered in the study: (1) Is there any relationship between gender, laterality, brain dominance, and being placed in LD programs? (2) Is there a curriculum, a method or a strategy of teaching that will accommodate the right-brain student once he is identified? Assessment tools used to answer the first question or test the first hypothesis were a Teacher observation Checklist for Handedness, and the Style of Learning and Thinking (SOLAT) hemisphericity test for elementary-aged children by Paul Torrance and published by Scholastic Testing Services. Using a chi-square test of proportions, it was determined that there is a correlation between gender, laterality, brain dominance, and LD placement. In order to answer the second question regarding assisting these students (once they are identified) to re-enter and progress academically in the regular self-contained elementary classroom, a treatment of ten learning activities was developed and administered over a period of ten weeks for one hour per week. At the conclusion of the treatment, a post-test was administered by using the Matrix Analogies Test--Short Form by J. Naglieri and published by the Psychological Corporation. A differences between means of hypothesis tests was performed and the Z scores of the means of the percentile ranks, stanines, and age equivalents showed no significant difference in academic performance between the experimental and control group. Therefore, a treatment curriculum or strategy for teaching the right-brain male was not found or clearly defined. Recommendations. (1) Right-brain students should remain in regular classroom situations where they will have a support team to determine that they will be accommodated in the regular classroom. (2) Educational efforts and finances should be a concern and should support a holistic approach to teaching children in order to keep the curriculum from being unbalanced with a left-brain orientation. (3) Future teachers should be prepared with a knowledge base for teaching right-brain students. (4) Further efforts to discover curriculum strategies for teaching right-brain children are needed.
Identifier: 12240 (digitool), FADT12240 (IID), fau:9146 (fedora)
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Thesis (Ed.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1989.
College of Education
Subject(s): School children--Ability testing
Learning ability
Cerebral dominance
Laterality
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12240
Sublocation: Digital Library
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.