Abstract
This study examined the use of assessment instruments which are classified as process tests and academic tests in the identification of specific learning disabled students (SLD). School psychologists administered the battery of tests (intelligence, process, and academic) to a random sample of black and white SLD (N-153) and non learning disabled (NLD) (N-182) male students across three age groups.Multiple discriminant function analyses were calculated using each of the test scores as an independent variable and classification as SLD as the dependent variable. Results of the stepwise discriminant method indicated that academic tests discriminated between the SLD and NLD groups better than the process tests, however, best discriminators varied across age and race.A direct method was used to determine how much information process testing added to the discrimination between the two groups after an academic test and an intelligence test were administered. These results showed that process tests added between 7.3% and 11.9% accuracy to the classification. A partial correlation procedure examined the relationship between process and academic measures while controlling for the effects of intelligence, resulting in a limited number of significant correlations.These findings raise serious questions regarding the current and future use of the process tests which were included in this study for the purpose of classifying SLD students.