High Ability/Learning Disabled Students: How Are They Different?

The purpose of the research was to investigate what characteristics distinguish High Ability/LD students from learning disabled students with average cognitive ability and from high ability students. One hundred-twelve high ability or learning disabled students in grades four through six participated in the study: High Ability, High Ability/LD, and LD/Average. A variety of instruments was used to assess and compare cognitive and motivational patterns in the three groups. Discriminant analyses indicated that the three groups are distinguishable. As might be expected, the greatest group difference existed between high ability nondisabled students and both learning disabled populations. A second discriminant function provided information about differences between the two learning disabled populations.