Most adolescents become more sophisticated learners as they move through their elementary years into adolescence. Those students with learning disabilities (LD), however, have a struggle with higher-order processing that begins in the elementary years and continues to generalize into adolescence. This article is a synthesis of research between the years of 1963 and 1997 on interventions for adolescents with LD. A total of 58 studies were analyzed with a focus on two interventions that seemed to work: direct instruction and strategy instruction. Author, H. Lee Swanson, Ph.D., analyzed the commonalities and distinctions in the two approaches. In addition to comparing and analyzing the approaches, he offers recommendations to researchers and advice for practitioners. (author/jlkrause)