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Barbara Grinder
What do novelist John Irving, billionaire businessman Charles Schwab, palaeontologist Jack Horner, cardiologist Helen Taussig, designer Ty Pennington and former vice-president of the United States Nelson Rockefeller have in common? All are highly successful in their chosen fields and all have some sort of learning disability.
“One of the first steps teachers can take to improve the school environment for students with cognitive, affective or behavioural difficulties is to investigate the possibility of a learning disability,” says Joanne Heckbert, a retired Edmonton teacher currently working as a reading specialist. “The understanding that many children have neurological difficulties which interfere with their learning and behaviour is recent. Many new teachers, and even experienced ones, are only now becoming aware of the problem and may have little training in accommodating students with these disorders in an inclusive classroom.”
Heckbert is the principal author of a new professional development workshop that will help teachers identify students with learning disabilities and provide resources and basic strategies to address these conditions in a classroom situation. The workshop, cosponsored by the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the Learning Disabilities Association of Alberta, includes sections for teachers and parents.
“Students with learning disabilities need different approaches in the classroom,” Heckbert says. “They need criteria-based instruction, where they can stay with a skill or concept until they learn it, rather than time-based, in which they move on to the next topic whether they have learned the previous one or not. They also need to learn self-regulation strategies, and they may need one-on-one instruction. They often need help learning social skills and curricular material. And they might need special interventions to build self-esteem. Teachers and peers need to realize that it’s not uncommon for students with learning disabilities in one area to be gifted in other areas.”
Learning disabilities are neurological disorders that may affect the acquisition, organization, retention and functional use of information by individuals who are otherwise of average or above-average intelligence. They include dyslexia (problems with letter and word recognition, spelling and writing), dyscalculia (problems with arithmetic and mathematical calculations) and dysgraphia (difficulties with idea formation, memory and the whole reading process). In many people, learning disorders may be accompanied by neurobehavioural problems, such as attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or as long-term alterations in mood, thoughts and emotions. These conditions make it even harder for the person to focus on learning.
To date, science doesn’t completely understand the causes of learning disabilities. Factors may include genetics, complications during pregnancy, environmental causes and brain injuries. Although many children are born with learning disorders, the problems usually aren’t recognized until the child goes to school. In the elementary and middle grades, learning disorders may show up as general difficulty with reading, confusing basic word meanings, making consistent spelling errors, trouble with the concept of time or not understanding the difference in basic ideas, such as up and down, right and left. As the child progresses, he or she may be unable to recall well-known facts, understand body language or facial expressions, or relate events in sequence.
High school students with a learning disorder may continue to spell incorrectly, pay too little or too much attention to detail, have difficulty putting thoughts on paper, and have a poor grasp of abstract concepts. Teenagers with these problems may be particularly vulnerable to peer pressure or be unable to sustain friendships, preferring to be alone and avoid embarrassing situations.
Heckbert says that with additional classroom time and support, especially for tasks involving reading, most learning-disabled students can succeed in school. “We need to change the methods we use to reach these students and the way we ask them to demonstrate what they’ve learned. This may include the provision of materials in media other than print. In fact, many of the techniques we use with learning-disabled students help students without these disorders.
“Most learning-disabled students can make relatively smooth transitions to secondary school and even university with the right help. In fact, many universities now have special programs for students with learning disabilities.”
Also in the Learning Team
