ABSTRACT
This paper has two parts. The first part has three purposes: (a) to provide a brief history of how a formal definition of learning disabilities (LDs) was determined; (b) to explore how politics and research during the past two decades has influenced how people think about the validity of the LD construct; and (c) to explain why a quantitative synthesis, or meta-analysis, was necessary to determine whether low achievers with and without the LD label were more alike or different. The second part of this chapter describes method, results, and implications of the meta-analysis.
