Develop complementary LD interventions that strengthen promotive and protective factors alongside interventions remediating core weaknesses¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 5 claims (5 for) · 1 study (1 theoretical), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 5 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The paper observes that most LD interventions target underlying weaknesses, while "Few interventions for LDs aim to enhance promotive or protective factors", partly because such factors are only beginning to be identified. It recommends that, in addition to remediation approaches, it could be beneficial to develop complementary interventions that also strengthen promotive and protective factors, which could support catch-up growth for children with LD relative to typically developing peers.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Identification of specific promotive and protective factors as intervention targets, ideally gap-closing (protective) targets

Constraints¶

• The paper notes such factors are just beginning to be identified, limiting current intervention design

Target Learners¶

• children with learning disabilities
• children at risk for learning disabilities

Target Learning Goals¶

• improving academic outcomes and closing gaps between higher- and lower-risk learners

Affordances¶

• Dp Resilience Framework Ld

Claims¶

• Emerging reading and math resilience literatures suggest candidate resilience factors across cognitive, emotion/motivation, social/environmental, and neural levels, most not yet classified as promotive or protective [+W]
• Explicit, instructional home numeracy activities acted as protective (not promotive) factors for 1st–2nd grade math performance in Torppa (2025) [+W]
• Promotive factors are associated with positive outcomes equally in low- and high-risk contexts, producing gap-maintaining effects identified via main effects [+W]
• Protective factors attenuate the effects of risk as risk rises, producing gap-closing effects represented analytically as Risk × Protective Factor interactions [+W]
• Vocabulary was a promotive but not protective factor for word reading: its interaction with phonological awareness was skill-enhancing, benefiting the lower-risk group [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Future academic resilience work should add resilience measures to longitudinal LD datasets and combine person-centered (e.g., LPA) with variable-centered analyses
• Build and enhance protective factors in at-risk populations through experimental and intervention studies to support resilient developmental trajectories
• Plan and conduct resilience-in-literacy research using designs and analyses that distinguish promotive, protective, and skill-enhancing factors
• Calibrate academic task design to individual students and strengthen self-efficacy and peer support as malleable protective factors for momentary engagement

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• Slomowitz R. F., Narayan A. J., & McGrath L. M. (2025). Resilience research in learning disabilities: Guiding principles from developmental psychopathology. Learning and Instruction. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2025.102090