Competencies for professionals in learning disabilities

A major role of any professional organization is to establish standards by which professionals and practices in the field can be evaluated. DCLD has taken a major step in this direction by developing a set of competencies for teachers of learning disabled children and youth. This article presents the rationale behind the development of these competencies as well as potential uses of the com-petency statements. The development of this set of competency statements underscores the Division's commitment to upgrading current practices. Readers are strongly encouraged to provide feedback to Dr. Newcomer's Committee on the scope, format, and content of the competency statements. Meaningful stan-dards can best be derived from these statements through a broad base of input from professionals in the field.- D.D.D. This article is to introduce the DCLD document, Competencies for Teachers of Learning Disabled Children and Youth, which recently was completed and which shortly will be disseminated to the member-ship. I am pleased to write this article, since it permits me to brag, just a bit, about a hard working committee, a supportive and cooperative board of trustees, and an in-terested membership, all of whom combined to make an idea into a reality. I will proceed first by providing some background informa-tion; second, discussing the rationale for the competencies; third, presenting examples of the competencies; and fourth, outlining some suggestions for the document's future use. BACKGROUND INFORMATION Most people would agree that the field of learning disabilities has undergone rapid development in the past ten years and has ex-perienced many of the "growing pains " which usually accompany development. In a remarkedly short period of time, professionals in the field have had to come to terms with a variety of controversial issues, not the least of which were the standards of competence re-quired of those who serve the learning disabled PHYLLIS L. NEWCOMER, Ph.D., is Associ