Classroom behaviors of LD and nonhandicapped girls. Learning Disability Quarterly

Abstract. No classroom observations have involved only LD females as subjects. The present study was conducted to determine any behavior differences between elementary LD and nonhandicapped girls in the regular classrom. Data were col-lected on child behaviors, child-child interactions and teacher-child interactions. Results showed that the LD girls spent less time doing schoolwork than nonhandi-capped girls. Unlike in research with LD boys, teachers were not found to (a) spend more time interacting with the LD children or (b) initiate more approaches to the LD girls. However, the teachers responded significantly less frequently to call-outs from LD girls. The present findings regarding teacher interactions with LD and nonhandicapped girls differ from those of most previous studies involving boys. The requirement that learning disabled (LD) children be observed in their regular classrooms (Federal Register, 1977) has led to an increase in observational research to determine any behavioral differences between LD and nonhandi-capped children in such settings. Results of this research show that LD children spend less tim