A Longitudinal Study of Children with Learning Disabilities Subsequent to

Learning disability has a multi-dimensional etiological base which complicates understanding of the relationship between the symptoms, such as academic underachievement, and the information processing behaviors related to human learning. Part I of this study has attempted to start with a known etiology, California Encephalitis Virus, which may possibly result in a known pathology, neurological insult, and relate the post-illness behavioral sequelae to academic achievement (underachievement) over a three year longitudinal basis. Part II will relate the specific aspects of the illness to individual behavioral and academic underachievement patterns of learning. Teachers and psychologists have observed sudden onsets of educational disability in school age children. These children may either enter school following summer vacation with unusual amounts of academic regression, or they may enter school with a predisposition that inhibits learning. Behavioral scientists have attempted to find reasons to explain just why such problems exist. Several possible reasons are obviously apparent, namely, human forgetting, sudden emotional trauma, peer or *This investigation was supported by Public Healt