Rebuttal

Abstract

Dr. Abrams, president of the Disabled Reader Committee of IRA, again endorses the position of the Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities that “those with the competencies to remediate a particular problem should be permitted to do so, regardless of the label that the teacher may possess.” His Disabled Reader Committee may, indeed, be “in the vanguard” in promoting such interdisciplinary cooperation. The thrust of the Disabled Reader Committee of the IRA was one that I commended in my original editorial, but it is obvious that this does not represent the thinking of the majority of professionals in the field of reading.

Nowhere in my editorial did I promote, encourage, or advocate any “territorial rights” for learning disabilities professionals. I only stated that I felt learning disabilities approaches have something to offer — and that the reading discipline cannot call the whole thing hogwash, and then ask to wash the same hog!

I do not disagree that state and federal funding patterns may be skewed and illogical, in some instances. But I do not believe that this will be remedied by imposing IRA's criteria for certification on all reading-language-learning programs, or by the instant christening of reading people as learning disabilities specialists. The call for legislative action to resolve inequitable funding or service delivery systems was grossly overshadowed by these presumptuous proposals.

Dr. Abrams asks us to look at the facts. He is correct that many children in LD programs have reading difficulties. I do not propose to argue the nature of learning disabilities in detail, but there is clear support for those who think LD takes in quite a bit more than reading, e.g., children with learning disabilities are defined by the National Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children as those who exhibit “disorders of listening, thinking, talking, reading, writing, spelling, or arithmetic” (USOE, 1968, p. 34).

Dr. Abrams agrees that the competencies for working with LD are not generally found among reading people. I agree with him that LD people should have better instruction in the teaching of reading. I am not arguing in regard to the general excellence or mediocrity of either the field of LD or reading. I was simply astonished at the too thinly veiled professional egocentrism in the IRA Resolution on Learning Disabilities. As Dr. Abrams says, “We do have to work together,” but is the IRA resolution really an example of the type of cooperation for which he calls? — P.L.