Learning Disability
A "learning disability" is a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding and using language spoken or written which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, spell, or do mathematical calculations.
There are really 2 parts to a learning disability. Processing and Discrepancy
First, having a learning disability means that your brain "processes" information differently than most other students. Certain kinds of information get stuck or lost while traveling through your brain.
Second, having a learning disability causes a "discrepancy" between your ability and your achievement. This means that you are a lot smarter than you perform in school. You might be just as smart as someone sitting next to you in class, but your grades in certain areas aren't as good. This isn't because you are dumb, lazy, or anything else bad. You just learn differently.
It's kind of like a baseball player who has the "ability" to hit home runs but is given a broken bat to use. He doesn't have the chance to prove how great he really is. An LD student often has trouble proving how smart he or she is.
INFORMATION PROCESSING.(Information processing refers to how your brain)
Takes in information
Uses this information, Uses this information
Stores the information in memory,ion in memory
Retrieves the information from memory, and from memory, and
Learning disabled students struggle with certain kinds of learning because their brains have difficulty "processing" certain kinds of information. It is like when you go on a car trip and get stuck in road construction. It takes you a lot longer to get where you are going. Its the same with information going through your brain. ing through your brain.
Information gets "bogged down" in certain areas of an LD brain. When information gets bogged down, it is much more difficult to learn.
Different kinds of information travel through different parts of the brain. That's why some information is learned quickly and easily while other information is much more difficult.
A learning disability can affect
Basic Reading
Reading Comprehension
Math Calculation
Math Reasoning
Written Expression
Oral Expression
Listening Comprehension
For special education services you have to prove that your learning difficulty is caused by the way your brain processes information. You also have to prove that your processing difficulty causes a "severe discrepancy" between what you should be able to learn (how smart you are) and how much you have learned (your achievement). You are given special tests to find out if you qualify for special education services.
For special education services you have to prove that your learning difficulty is caused by the way your brain processes information. You also have to prove that your processing difficulty causes a "severe discrepancy" between what you should be able to learn (how smart you are) and how much you have learned (your achievement). You are given special tests to find out if you qualify for special education services.
Many learning disabled students experience very similar processing and learning difficulties. And all LD students get frustrated in school. A true learning disability never goes away. But, with understanding and effort you can learn to use your many strengths to "compensate" for your weaker processing skills. You may also be able to strengthen your weak processing skills so that your learning difficulties are not so severe. Many learning disabled people are highly creative and "gifted" in many ways. Even many famous and very successful people have learning disabilities.
In India, LD has attracted widespread attention only during the last decade or so. Historically, eastern scholars have viewed the high incidence of problems associated with the acquisition of reading in the western world as the result of the vagaries and complexities of alphabetic writing systems such as English. Paradoxically, the seemingly lower of concern about these issues in the east were attributed by western scholars to the lack of awareness and sensitivity among eastern educators to the specific difficulties of the LD child learning to read in a crowded classroom.
There have hardly been any epidemiological studies of LD in India. However, over the last decade or so there has been an increase in the identification of individual children with LD and a consequent demand for services. So far this process is largely confined to children enrolled in urban schools with English as the medium of instruction and seems to support the eastern viewpoint on reading disorders. However, the identification of large numbers of children with learning disabilities even in rural areas in ongoing epidemiological studies in states such as Kerala, lend support to the larger viewpoint of LD as a widely prevalent, lifespan disorder contributed to by more than difficulties in sound to script matching.
Bilingualism and multilingualism are widespread phenomena in India. Most Indian children, particularly in urban areas, are exposed to more than one language even in their preschool years. Once in school, they are expected to master more than one language and script, often widely varied in their structure. Children who come from diverse linguistic and socioeconomic backgrounds, enroll in English medium schools with varying degrees of exposure to English in the preschool years and with different degrees of literacy support at home, ranging from zero (illiterate parents) to a fairly high degree of preschool exposure and/or support not only has to cope with both the new language and literacy acquisition, but also has to compete with his peers.
The conditions in classrooms, even in the best schools, are far from ideal. More often than not, a single teacher, inadequately trained and equipped, has to handle between 50 and 100 children in a single classroom. Under these conditions, it would indeed be surprising for teachers to be able to identify and cater to the needs of individual children with learning difficulties. While scholars and researchers have dismissed the idea of reading difficulties in Indian children, given the transparency of the Indian Script, educators and teachers have applied the phonics versus whole language methods to the teaching of syllabic writing systems without questioning their relevance and thereby adding to the existing confusion.
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