Our Research

Texas Center for Learning Disabilities

Principal Investigators

Overall Project Principal Investigator:
Jack Fletcher, Ph.D., University of Houston

Project Principal Investigators:

Project I: David Francis, Ph.D., Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics at the University of Houston and Jack Fletcher, University of Houston
Project II: Jack Fletcher, Ph.D., University of Houston and Carolyn Denton, Children’s Learning Institute, University of Texas Health Science Center Houston
Project III: Sharon Vaughn, Ph.D., Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts, University of Texas at Austin
Project IV: Andrew Papanicolaou, Ph.D., Center for Clinical Neurosciences in the Children’s Learning Institute, University of Texas Health Science Center Houston

Funding Agency

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Description of the Project

The Texas Center for Learning Disabilities (TCLD) is a multi-disciplinary research center developed to investigate (a) definition and measurement issues related to learning disabilities (LD), (b) intervention for younger (prevention) and older (remediation) students with reading difficulties, and (c) the neurobiological correlates of LD. Researchers will examine cognitive, neurological, and educational characteristics of students with differing levels of response to intervention in the early elementary and middle school grades.
The TCLD includes four projects and three administrative cores:

Project:

Project I (Classification) focuses on alternatives for identifying students with LDs. Through a series of studies over a 5-year period, researchers are examining response to intervention (RTI) as a framework for delivering appropriate levels of intervention in response to students’ needs and for identifying students whose educational outcomes will benefit from alternative instructional settings, such as special education. Researchers in Project 1 also focus on developing reliable and efficient assessments for screening and monitoring student response to intervention in middle school.
Project II (Early Intervention) examines the effects of instructional intervention delivered with different levels of intensity on student reading achievement and response to intervention. Two cohorts of students will participate in Tier I and Tier II intervention in first grade. Students with inadequate intervention response in first grade will receive more intensive Tier III intervention in grade 2. Students in the first cohort will be followed through grade 3. In the 2007-2008 grade 1 study, researchers are comparing students’ response to small-group supplemental (Tier II) intervention provided on three schedules: (a) 4 times per week for 8 weeks, (b) 2 times per week for 16 weeks, and (c) 4 times per week for 16 weeks.
Project III (Remediation) is focused on the effect of interventions of differing intensity on the reading achievement of middle school struggling readers, addressing the instructional needs of students in grades 6–8. Researchers will investigate instructional features that are effective with middle school students who have a history of reading difficulties.
Project IV (Magnetic Source Imaging, MSI) examines the neural correlates of reading in students who have (or who are at risk for having) reading difficulties and disabilities. Researchers will use Magnetic Source Imaging to investigate the brain activation patterns of students in Projects II and III who have persistently inadequate response, even when provided with highly intensive reading interventions, comparing them to activation patterns of typically developing readers. Project IV will add to the field’s understanding of the characteristics of students with varying levels of intervention response, and it may provide external validation of RTI procedures studied in Project I.

Core:

Core A provides administrative oversight of TCLD and is led by Jack Fletcher.
Core B is responsible for data collection, data handling, maintenance of databases, and statistical analyses, and is led by David Francis.
Core C is responsible for the development and maintenance of the TCLD website and participates in the dissemination of study findings and of research-based information on RTI models. Core C, which is funded by the Texas Education Agency, is led by Greg Roberts at the Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.

Sites

The research sites are the University of Houston, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Project II is currently being implemented in elementary schools in Del Valle and Houston ISDs, and Project III is being implemented in middle schools in Round Rock, Manor, and Houston ISDs.

Timeline

In the 2007-2008 school year, we are completing Year 2 of the 5-year project. Projects I, III, and IV are in their second year of implementation, while Project II is in its first year of implementation in schools.

For a list of relevant presentations and publications, see http://www.texasldcenter.org/

For More Information, Contact

Terri Kurz, Ph.D., Project Coordinator
University of Texas at Austin
512-232-5579
tkurz@mail.utexas.edu

Melissa Romain, Ph.D., Project Coordinator
University of Houston
832-842-2015
maromain@uh.edu