The high incidence rate of learning disabilities has drawn inevitable attention from governments around the world. The Hong Kong government has also developed support services in the last few decades. Such effort has become more prominent following the implementation of integrated education in 1997 when students are now given accommodation measures in public examinations upon the completion of their secondary education. This article, however, stresses the need for post-secondary support services, whether for further studies, employment, and adult life. Considering the lack of literature to inform the professionals of the field of learning disabilities and the government of Hong Kong of the issues related to and needs of adults with learning disabilities, this article highlighted the author's insight from experiences as a spouse of a person with learning disabilities in three major aspects to pinpoint pertinent issues in post-secondary education, employment, and family/social life confronting adults with learning disabilities and discuss the way forward in the context of Hong Kong. The article proposed three major aspects to develop the adult support framework in Hong Kong: (a) establishing policies and practices for transition programs and adult services, (b) aggressive publicity and public education, and (c) developing a culture of social advocacy. 日益增加有學習障礙的個案已令舉世政府義無反顧地提出照顧方案，香港政府在過去數十年間亦發展了不同的支援服務。自一九九七年香港正式確立推行融合教育以來，政府已訂下為有學習障礙的同學在中學會考應試時應得到適切的安排。本文特別強調中學畢業後成人支援服務的需要。由於現時甚少文獻或資料提及對有學習障礙成人在持續進修、就業及成人生活方面的支援，可供業界仝工參考，本文作者會以學習障礙成人配偶的經驗，分享個人的心得，特別會強調以下三方面的重要性︰(一) 轉銜到成人服務的政策及實務；(二) 進取的宣傳及公眾教育推廣﹔及 ( 三) 倡議及發展接受學習障礙的社會文化。
[Copyright of Hong Kong Special Education Forum is the property of Special Education Society of Hong Kong Ltd.. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
https://sites.google.com/a/seshk.org.hk/seshk-org-hk/c_publication]

This small-scale exploratory study identified strategies used by three intellectually very able university students with specific learning difficulties for maintaining motivation on their path to achievement. All three participants were located in Hong Kong. The research questions were: (a) What coping strategies are used by intellectually very able university students with specific learning difficulties? (b) What are the critical influences driving and supporting their motivation to achieve? A narrative inquiry method was used to obtain and analyze data. Two gifted university graduates and one undergraduate, all with specific learning difficulties, were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire and open discussion. Data indicated that they developed strategies to cope largely in response to adverse learning environments. The support of significant persons, such as parents and teachers, were also seen to be essential for sustaining their motivation to achieve. Implications for supporting university students with specific learning difficulties are briefly discussed.
[Copyright of Gifted Education International is the property of SAGE Publications]

The increasing number of Mainland Chinese immigrant children in the Hong Kong school system mandates our understanding of teacher readiness to work effectively with these students. This case study adopted narrative inquiry to probe deep into participants’ lived experiences to reveal significant insight into teacher readiness in working with Chinese immigrant students with disabilities. Data sources included field notes, unstructured- and semi-structured interviews, and classroom observations. Findings showed that the special education teacher was primarily concerned about the student participant’s difficulty associated with his disabilities, totally unaware of the impact of her limited proficiency in the child’s first language. The government’s concept of acculturation needs and subsequent policy contributed greatly to school personnel’s lack of awareness of student needs and lack of readiness to work effectively. Recommendations focused on government policies for qualification requirements of special education teachers and reforms to integrate special and multicultural teacher education.

One of the recent developments in the education of speech-language pathology is to include literacy disorders and learning disabilities as key training components in the training curriculum. Disorders in reading and writing are interwoven with disorders in speaking and listening, which should be managed holistically, particularly in children and adolescents. With extensive training in clinical linguistics, language disorders, and other theoretical knowledge and clinical skills, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are the best equipped and most competent professionals to screen, identify, diagnose, and manage individuals with literacy disorders. To tackle the challenges of and the huge demand for services in literacy as well as language and learning disorders, the Hong Kong Institute of Education has recently developed the Master of Science Programme in Educational Speech-Language Pathology and Learning Disabilities, which is one of the very first speech-language pathology training programmes in Asia to blend training components of learning disabilities, literacy disorders, and social-emotional-behavioural-developmental disabilities into a developmentally and medically oriented speech-language pathology training programme. This new training programme aims to prepare a new generation of SLPs to be able to offer comprehensive support to individuals with speech, language, literacy, learning, communication, and swallowing disorders of different developmental or neurogenic origins, particularly to infants and adolescents as well as to their family and educational team.
[Copyright © 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel.]

This study investigates the Chinese reading patterns of students with learning disabilities (LD). The performances of students with LD in reading the three categories of Chinese characters were particularly analysed: regular, irregular, and pseudo-characters. Fifty-three students with LD in reading and 44 students without LD of Year 4 were selected from five Hong Kong primary schools. Their abilities for reading Chinese characters were measured using Rasch analysis. Both types of students found regular characters as the easiest to read. Students without LD showed better performance in reading irregular characters than pseudo-characters, whereas students with LD exhibited no significant performance difference in reading these two categories. The implication of these results is that the students without LD might rely on using the orthographic processing than that of phonological processing to read. On the other hand, students with LD might not have the preference of using the orthographic processing.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2013.785060]