Have you ever wanted to understand more fully how
special education teachers handle learners with Learning Disabilities? Educators have
struggled over the years to formulate a clearer and comprehensive definition of
the term learning disability, which generally describes children of seemingly
normal intelligence who, nevertheless, have learning problems.
It's interesting to note that learning disabilities
are so real even though they have not been clearly understood and well defined
by scholars. I am reminded of the numerous children I have come across here in
Nigeria who displayed behaviours that could be attributed to learning
disabilities, but were clearly misunderstood. Of course, many learners with learning disabilities may have apparently normal intelligence but still experience learning problems and this can be frustrating for them, as well as their teachers and parents. For this reason, some of these students have been even tagged as ‘block
heads’ or ‘dull students,’ and taken through horrifying experiences. Now it
keeps becoming clearer to me, that special educators have a huge responsibility
in seeking out the best ways to identify and educate students with learning
disabilities.
Over time, I have also realised that, first,
teachers would have to come to terms with the definition of, and how to
identify learning disabilities in order to find the best educational
approaches/interventions.
Out of the many acceptable definitions of learning
disabilities, the most influential definition so far is the definition by the
U.S. National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD).
"Learning
disabilities is a general term that refers to a heterogeneous group of
disorders manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of
listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities.
These disorders intrinsic to the individual, presumed to be due to central
nervous system dysfunction, and may occur across the lifespan. Problems in self-regulatory
behaviours, social perception and social interaction may exist with learning
disabilities but do not by themselves constitute a learning disability.
Although learning
disability may occur concomitantly with other handicapping conditions (e.g., sensory
impairment, mental retardation, serious emotional disturbance) or with
extrinsic influences (e.g., cultural differences, insufficient or inappropriate
instruction), they are not the result of those conditions or influence."
Although the
definition sheds more light on the issue, it's still not very clear to many
folks, how an individual having apparently normal intelligence could cope with
learning disabilities. It's however, encouraging that “identification
procedures for learning disabilities are currently in a state of transition”
(Hallahan, 2012), in my opinion this gives room for further research into the
subject.
Currently, Response to Intervention (RTI), a
multi-tiered approach practised in the U.S. is favored as the more acceptable
way of identifying students with learning disabilities. Statistics indicate
that just under 5% of children between the ages of 6 and 7 years in the U.S.
have been identified as learning disabled by the U.S. public schools. This
highlights the fact that learning disability is by far the largest category of
special education in the U.S. An important question one could ask, is, does
this statistic include learners with exceptionalities as well? What about those
who physical challenges have caused to become learners with disabilities, such
as those who are blind or deaf, are they also a part of this category?
In any case, the exact causes of learning disability
have not yet been fully discovered, however results from various studies have
shown that “Central Nervous System (CNS) dysfunction could be the cause of
many, if not most cases of learning disabilities.” Some sources of problems for learners with learning
disabilities include:
a. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD)
b. Memory and metacognitive problems
c. Social – emotional problems
d. Motivational problems
e. Inactive learner with strategy deficits
In addition, the following are some of the psychological
and behavioural characteristics of learners with learning disabilities:
a. Persons with learning disability exhibit interindividual
and intraindividual variability.
b. Reading disabilities in the form of decoding,
fluency, and comprehension problems.
d. Writing disabilities in form of handwriting,
spelling and composition.
e. Spoken language disabilities in form of syntax,
semantics, phonology and pragmatics.
f. Math disabilities including computation and
word problems.
You may not be aware that even though students with
learning disabilities struggle in one area of learning, they may also excel in
another. Thus, paying attention to the student’s interests and passions would
help them develop their passions and strengths, and probably help them with their
areas of difficulty as well.
Some important considerations with respect to early
intervention for learners with learning disabilities are as follows:
a. Little preschool programming exists for
children with learning disabilities
because it's so hard to predict at that age which children will later develop academic problems.
b. Even though prediction is not perfect,
several developmental milestones
are related to comprehension or expression of spoken language, emergent literacy skills, and perceptual skills that
indicate the possibility of having
learning disabilities.
As a special educator, one of the most important
lessons I have learned is that every individual, (learning disability or not)
has their own unique learning style. Some students learn best by seeing or
reading, others by listening, and still others by doing. Parents can help their
learning disabled child by identifying his or her primary learning style. For
example, is the child a visual learner, an auditory learner, or a kinesthetic learner? Once the child’s best learning style is known, steps may easily be
taken to make sure that type of learning is reinforced in the classroom and
during home study.
