Abstract reasoning in a specific group of perceptually impaired children: namely, the learning-disabled

The present study was designed to investigate whether learning-disabled children differ from normal achievers in terms of logical thought and wheter they exhibit décalages intheir acquisition of Piagetian concepts. The Ss comprised 35 learning-disabled boys attending full-time remedial schools and 35 matched normal achievers. The group mean was 9 years 1 month and the mean IQ was 109. S s were tested on a measure of visual perception and on 11 Piagetian tasks measuring conservation of quantitiy and number, seriation, and classification. Results indicated a significant difference between the groups in terms of perception but not in terms of logical thought. The rank order of the 11 Piagetain tasks was significantly correlated for the two groups (r = .89). It was concluded that the perceptual problems of the learning-disabled reside at a functional rather than at an organizational level, thus effecting only specific congnitive activities.