Psycholinguistic Abilities in Learning-Disabled, Emotionally Disturbed,

The use of the concept &dquo;minimal brain dysfunction&dquo; to explain learning and behavior disabilities has increased, despite theoretical inadequacies and difficulties in definition by (Clements, 1966). A large number of special classes for children diagnosed as having &dquo;minimal brain dysfunction&dquo; or &dquo;minimal neurological handicaps&dquo; have been established; these are frequently called &dquo;learning-disabilities&dquo; (LD) classes. Attempts to diagnose or describe the &dquo;brain-damaged&dquo; child have been directed towards such psychological functions as perception, perceptual-motor abilities, language abilities, memory, and attention. The one-to-one relationship between deficits in the above abilities and &dquo;brain damage&dquo; has consistently been questioned, not only with retarded children (Schulman, 1965) but also with children of average intelligence (Herbert, 1964). Reitan (1965) and Birch and Bortner (1968) questioned the view of &dquo;brain damage&dquo; as a unitary concept, i.e., as the sole independent variable accounting for the diverse symptoms of children who have deficits in the functions men-tioned above. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that deficits in the above abilities, particularly in language skills, can be equally well accounted for on the basis of more traditional global concepts such as socioeconomic status (SES) and general intelligence, or IQ (Grotberg, 1965; McCarthy, 1954). Many of the studies involving &dquo;brain-damaged&dquo; or emotionally dis-turbed (ED) children do not control for SES differences or even, in some cases, for IQ; such a design flaw could readily lead to differences between groups on such variables as language skills and perceptual-motor abilitie