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Profile
The themes of Dr. Speece’s program of research are the developmental and contextual factors that place young children at risk for school failure. This research had its genesis in classification studies of children identified as learning disabled and evolved into the study of children prior to their placement in special education, specifically targeting the development of reading skills. A central problem in the field of special education is the early identification of children who may experience academic failure and the amelioration of the potentially debilitating effects of such failure. Current methods of identifying children as learning disabled rely on a "wait and fail" model in which children must demonstrate severe academic problems before remediation is rendered. Dr. Speece attempts to address these issues by describing the diversity of children who are learning disabled or at risk. The ultimate goals of this research are to understand developmental precursors of school failure, add precision to the definition of learning disabilities, and delineate interventions that better serve the needs of these children. The methodological approach is longitudinal and multivariate. Dr. Speece currently is completing a project that is built upon a number of her interests including early identification, classification, classroom contexts, and reading. This research is designed to test the impact of a novel identification model on (a) prevailing methods of learning-disabilities identification in the public schools, (b) overrepresentation of minority children in special education, (c) classroom reading contexts of general education teachers, and (d) the reading progress of at-risk children over three years. The model is based on a measurement system that is tightly linked with reading instruction in the primary grades and extends her research to working directly with general educators to improve the quality of reading instruction for at-risk children. Both quantitative and qualitative methodologies are used to provide an in-depth examination of one of the more intractable educational problems: early identification and remediation of reading failure. Dr. Speece received the Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of North Carolina in 1984. She teaches courses in assessment and learning disabilities. Selected Recent Publications
Speece, D.L., & Keogh, B.K. (Eds.). (1996). Research on
classroom ecologies: Implications for inclusion of children with learning
disabilities. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gallimore, R., Bernheimer, L., MacMillan, D. L., Speece, D. L.,
& Vaughn, S. R. (Eds.). (1999). Developmental
perspectives on children with high-incidence disabilities. Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Speece, D.L., & Harry, B.
(1997). Classification
for children. In J. W. Lloyd,
E. J. Kame’enui, & D. Chard (Eds.), Issues in educating students
with disabilities (pp. 63-73). Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Hart, E. R. & Speece, D. L. (1998). Reciprocal teaching goes to
college: Effects for postsecondary students at risk for academic failure.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 670-681.
Speece, D. L., Roth, F. P., Cooper, D. H., & De La Paz, S.
(1999). The relevance
of oral language skills to early literacy: A multivariate analysis.
Applied Psycholinguistics, 20, 167-190.
Recent Grants Title:
Classification in context: The effects of research-based,
classroom-grounded Investigators:
D. L. Speece, D. E. Molloy and L. P. Case Funding
Organization: U.S. Dept. of Education, Office of Special Education
Programs Dates: 1997-2000 Total
Amount:
$555,000. Title:
Doctoral leadership program in learning disabilities: Preparing
researchers and Investigators:
D. L. Speece, S. Graham and K. R. Harris Funding
Organization: U.S. Dept. of Education, Office of Special Education
Programs Dates: 1997-2001 Total Amount: $813,812. |
Last modified 18 February, 2001
© 2000
University of Maryland
