• Learning disabilities research has profoundly influenced public policy, especially in the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA not only made it possible for students with disabilities to attend public schools and to receive an appropriate education, but also has had a rippling effect on diagnosis and treatment approaches in all spheres involving people with learning disabilities. The next goal is to assure that students with disabilities are identified early on and receive an education that is reflective of enhanced instructional outcomes.
• The Consortium serves children who demonstrate language and learning disabilities, neurodevelopmental disorders/brain injury, autism and environmental sources of risk, including poverty and language minority status.
• Work done at TIMES at UH has provided several hundred school districts important feedback to improve reading skills of low-income and minority students to close the academic achievement gap and prevent high dropout rates.
• The Consortium at UH has effective long-term linkages with allied programs at the Texas Medical Center’s UT-Houston, Texas Children Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, the Texas Education Agency, and UT-Austin.

Community Partnership:

“We have seen significant gains in the students’ reading levels, along with the pride that comes from being successful” was the remark from Patricia Emerson, Instructional Coordinator at Longfellow Elementary. This is an example of the efforts from TCHRC affiliated tutors who were involved in a study to identify the needs for at risk reading behaviors in the fourth and fifth grade populations at the school. The TCHRC tutors are former teachers and trained tutors, who volunteered their time to do extra tutoring in advance of recent State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) and Iowa Standardized testing. Nearly 60 students benefitted from their tutoring efforts.