What's “Special” about the special education resource room for learning disabled students?

This article reports on a study of the instructional ecology of resource rooms and regular classrooms for LD students. Eight students were observed on 53 events in 10-second intervals for two complete days of classroom instruction. Comparisons were made of how these students spent their time in resource and regular rooms. In general, opportunities for differentiated instruction were available to the LD students in the resource rooms (e.g., instruction in reading was more individualized). However, no practical differences were noted in the amount of time students were actively engaged in instruction in the two settings. Overall, in both settings, LD students were actively engaged in responding to academic tasks for a very short time (29 minutes per day in resource rooms, 19 minutes per day in regular classrooms).