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The Historical Foundation of Learning Disabilities

A Quantitative Synthesis Assessing the Validity of Strauss and Werner's Exogenous Versus Endogenous Distinction of Mental Retardation

Kenneth A. Kavale, Professor and chair of the Division of Special Education at the University of Iowa, received his PhD from the University of Minnesota. His research interests are learning disabilities and meta-analysis.

Steven R. Forness

Steven R. Forness received his EdD from the University of Calfornia, Los Angeles. He is professor of pychiatty and biobehavioral sciences and principal of the inpatient school at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. His research interest is direct classroom observation of children with learning or behavior problems.

This paper reviews the research of Alfred Strauss and Heinz Werner on the behavioral differences between exogenous (brain injured) and endogenous (familial-cultural) mental retardation using quantitative methods of research synthesis. The concept of exogenous mental retardation evolved into present-day conceptions of learning disabilities. The findings, however, offer little empirical support for the presumed behavioral differences and reveal considerable overlap among the exogenous and endogenous samples studied by Strauss and Werner. Because the behavioral differences were not of sufficient magnitude for presumptive inference about the consequences of brain damage, it is concluded that much of the foundation of the learning disabilities field has been based on overgeneralized assumptions regarding the nature of brain injury.

The great tragedy of science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

—T. H. Huxley

Remedial and Special Education, Vol. 6, No. 5, 18-24 (1985)
DOI: 10.1177/074193258500600505


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