LEARNING DISABILITY OUTCOMES IN ADULTS

Yale University, New Haven CT

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Abstract

Description: (Adapted from applicant's description) The overall objective of this project is to investigate the adult consequences of childhood learning disability (LD), math disability (MD), and particularly reading disability (RD). Developmental course and consequences are examined from two complementary perspectives: 1) from an epidemiologic perspective, these investigators will determine the outcome of RD and MD; and 2) from a fine-grained, analytic perspective, they will investigate the neurobiologic and cognitive mechanisms serving reading in adults with a childhood history of RD. They propose to study a precious resource, the cohort of 445 children recruited initially in 1983 and prospectively followed from kindergarten. In one Project, this large and virtually intact sample (n=401) will be studied at adulthood (ages 23-29 years). The sample, the measures and the longitudinal framework allow them to address two central themes: 1. Nature and determinants of outcome at adulthood; 2. Neurolinguistic and neurobiologic mechanisms in adults with childhood histories of reading disability. In the first, the investigators inquire of a large sample of adults who have been prospectively assessed for RD and MD: What is the nature and determinants of outcome of childhood RD and MD at adulthood? In the second, the investigators address mechanisms in adults with childhood history of RD, asking the question: What are the underlying cognitive and neurobiologic factors contributing to the development of fluency and automaticity in skilled readers and the relative success or failure to develop these components of skilled reading in groups of disabled readers? Although initiated in 1983, this study incorporates many of the recommendations made in this RFA. The Connecticut Longitudinal Study is unique in its ability to address some of the most pressing questions in learning disability research and practice. Innovative in using cutting edge neuroscience together with a prospectively defined population of a range of readers, some with persistent, others with compensated reading problems, this study weds the power of an epidemiologic survey, longitudinal follow-up with the power of modern imaging technology to provide a new dimension to studies of skilled reading, specifically automaticity and fluency.