Learning Disabilities Assignments History Terminology Links Notes

Objectives: Recognize the definition of learning disabilities. List the characteristics of learning disabilities. List some major accommodations for students with learning disabilities. Identify some problems with the definition of learning disabilities.  Describe problems caused by the definition of learning disabilities as they relate to placement, service, and funding. Assignments: Read history, characteristics, terminology, and notes in this section.         Compare and contrast  mental retardation and learning disabilities.

Audio Selections from a radio program produced by Mary Beth Kirchner and Noel Gunther/WETA in association with the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives.  Narrated by Judy Woodruff, site hosted by LDOnline.

• The prevalence of learning disabilities (30 seconds)
• What is dyslexia? (26 seconds)
• More about dyslexia (22 seconds)
• Prevalence of reading problems (32 seconds)
• Dr. Sally Shaywitz on the newness of reading (18 seconds)
• Dr. Sally Shaywitz on phonemes (48 seconds)
• Dr. Sally Shaywitz on reading (28 seconds)
• Dr. Reid Lyon on reading and brain activity (40 seconds)

• History
• Terminology
• Links

Learning Disabilities - Definition

 

A generic term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and reasoning abilities...Even though a learning disability may occur concomitantly with other disabling conditions (e.g., sensory impairment, mental retardation, social and emotional disturbance) or environmental influences (e.g., cultural differences or insufficient/inappropriate instruction) it is not the direct result of those conditions or influences.

The student with a learning disability may show one or more of the following (Batshaw, M.L. and Perret, Y.M. (1992) Children with disabilities: A medical primer (3rd edition) Baltimore, Maryland. Paul H. Brookes Publishing):

• Specific academic skills deficits. For example, the student may have trouble with basic reading skills, reading comprehension, writing, written expression, spelling, mathematical calculation, and mathematical reasoning.  Perceptual-motor impairments. The student may have trouble distinguishing shapes and sizes. He or she may have also difficulty with fine motor activities, such as writing, coloring and cutting. They may lack established handedness and may make letter, word, and/or number reversals.

• Memory and thinking disorders. The students may be deficient in the use of strategies for memorization and haphazard in their approaches to learning. They may have poor language skill, which hinder memory, difficulty with short-term auditory and visual memory, and a lack of awareness of skills and strategies needed to solve problems and perform tasks.

• Speech and language disorders. The student may have difficulty with the grammar (syntax), meaning (semantics), or social use (pragmatics) of language.

• Attention disorders: The student may have difficulty concentrating and remaining "on task". He or she rarely finishes what is started, frequently jumps from one activity to another, and is easily distracted by competing stimuli.

• Hyperactivity. The student has difficulty sitting still, is constantly in motion, is fidgety, and seems driven by an "inner motor."

• Impulsiveness. The student often acts without thinking, has poor planning and organizational skills, responds quickly and makes many errors, and lacks self-regulation skills.

• Emotional lability. The student is moody and often isolated or rejected by his or her peers. He or she may have low self-esteem and is more likely to violate social norms. He or she may exhibit inappropriate ways of getting attention, elicits more negative reactions from others, and be lacking in social cognition skills. Also, he or she may have difficulty with reading nonverbal social cues and with motivation. He or she may be passive, rather than active learners.

• General coordination deficits. The student may be uncoordinated and have difficulty with fine and/or gross motor skills (e.g. tying shoes, running, hopping, skipping), and depth perception.

• Neurological soft signs. Poor fine motor coordination, balance, and tactile discrimination. The student may have strabismus and poor visual-motor coordination.

• Emotional lability. The student is moody and often isolated or rejected by his or her peers. He or she may have low self-esteem and is more likely to violate social norms. He or she may exhibit inappropriate ways of getting attention, elicits more negative reactions from others, and be lacking in social cognition skills. Also, he or she may have difficulty with reading nonverbal social cues and with motivation. He or she may be passive, rather than active learners.

• General coordination deficits. The student may be uncoordinated and have difficulty with fine and/or gross motor skills (e.g. tying shoes, running, hopping, skipping), and depth perception.

• Neurological soft signs. Poor fine motor coordination, balance, and tactile discrimination. The student may have strabismus and poor visual-motor coordination.

Classroom Accommodations

• Allow the student with writing difficulties to use a word processor for writing assignments.
• The student may need a note-taker.
• The student with mathematical difficulties may need to use a calculator for math classes.
• If necessary, the student should have access to books on tape.
• Due to perceptual difficulties, the student may need preferential seating.
• The student may need longer or unlimited time for an examination.
• Examinations can be modified to have less multiple choice or true-or-false questions.

Children with learning disabilities makeup half the pupils in special education and, according to some writers, as much as 80% of American students could be classified as learning disabled (LD) by one or more definitions (Wang, Reynolds, & Walberg, 1986; Reynolds, Wang, & Walberg, 1987).  Disagreement has always surrounded definitions, assessment practices, and the efficacy of therapies and remedial. All definitions of learning disabilities are vague, dwelling on what a learning disability is not rather than what it is (Levine, et al, 1993).

The number of LD students in schools has created a crisis for local schools and state education agencies. When the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was first passed in 1975, the federal government agreed to pay 40 percent of the extra cost for special education for students with disabilities. The federal commitment under the law has never been honored, placing a significant burden on states and local districts.

The increasing number of children classified as LD and growing expense is causing many states to adopt "inclusion" as a way to save money.  Inclusion means that most disabled children are served in their regular classrooms, thus reducing the demand for as many special teachers and space to accommodate special education students. Recently, the National Institute of Health has summarized a number of studies about learning disabilities that may clarify some of the issues about identification and treatment.  These may have significant policy implications by reducing the number of children classified as learning disabled and the overall demand for and related expense of special education.

Classification of Learning Disabilities

The basis for establishing a learning disability usually involves finding a discrepancy (such as reading) in comparison with IQ. According to Grossen (1997) difference between a child with a learning disability in reading and one who is merely a poor reader is one of degree. For those who are interested in clear identification of children with learning disabilities, this is not good news. However, the best predictor of a reading problem is the inability to decode single words (Lyon, 1997). As Grossen notes, comparing the performance of a child with his or her peers in terms of reading ability across domains is a better method of identifying a reading difficulty than an achievement discrepancy, the common practice.  Baker, Simmons, & Kameenui, (1997) drew the following conclusions from a review of research:

The National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD) believes that inappropriate diagnostic practices and procedures
have contributed to misclassification of individuals and questionable incidence rates of learning disabilities. Such practices and
procedures result in erroneously including individuals whose learning and behavioral problems are not attributable to learning
disabilities and excluding individuals whose deficits are manifestations of specific learning disabilities.  The NJCLD views the following issues as important to an understanding of current concerns:

• lack of adherence to a consistent definition of learning disabilities that emphasizes the intrinsic and life-long nature of the condition;
• lack of understanding, acceptance, and willingness to accommodate normal variations in learning and behavior;
• lack of sufficient competent personnel and appropriate programs to support the efforts of teachers to accommodate the needs of children who do not have learning disabilities but who require alternative instructional methods;
• insufficient supply of competently prepared professionals to diagnose and manage exceptional individuals;
• the false belief that underachievement is synonymous with specific learning disability;
• the incorrect assumption that quantitative formulas alone can be used to diagnose learning disabilities;
• failure of multidisciplinary teams to consider and integrate findings related to the presenting problem(s);
• lack of comprehensive assessment practices, procedures, and instruments necessary to differentiate learning          disabilities from other types of learning problems; and
• general preference for the label "learning disability" over "mental retardation" or "emotional disturbance," which leads to the misclassification of some individuals.

Chard, Simmons, & Kameenui, (1995) report that:

Reading comprehension and other higher order reading activities are dependent on strong word recognition. Alphabetic understanding (i.e., a reader's understanding that words are composed of graphemes and letter-sound correspondence) facilitates word recognition. Phonological recording (i.e., translating a word into its phonological counterpart)  combined with word frequency mediates word recognition.

Although originally intended as a rubric and not a diagnostic syndrome, learning disabilities is now a recognized category in special education.  The current definition of learning disabilities widely used, if not embraced, is important because it relates to funding of special education programs:

Specific learning disability means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations.  The term includes such conditions as perceptual handicaps, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.  The term does not include children who have learning problems which are primarily the result of visual, hearing or motor handicaps, or mental retardation, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage (Federal Register  42:163, 29 December, 1977, 65083).

 Justifications for "discrepancy" are ambiguous.  Of course, brain injury, genetics, perceptual motor problems, hyperactivity, and other traits linger from the influence of Strauss and others.  DeRuiter and Wansart (1982) reported that research about the learning processes in learning disabilities could be classified under five areas: attention, perception, memory, cognition, and encoding.  Other writers emphasize language, and language is included in the official federal definition.  Impairments in these learning processes are the characteristics of LD children, but they are also found to exist in other categories of special education and even among non-disabled children.  With so much overlap there is intense disagreement about the significance of these traits.

In summary, learning disabilities is identified as failure of an apparently capable child to achieve, which is confirmed on the basis of test criteria.  The discrepancy, expressed in terms of test scores, may be said to be caused by a subtle cerebral deficit or by impaired psychological processes thought to interfere with learning, such as attention, perception, memory, cognition, and encoding, or other characteristics that are synonymous with or variations of these "learning processes," such as attention deficit, hyperactivity, thinking disorder, and so forth.  While some argue for a more restrictive definition based on salient diagnostic criteria, others have supported expansion of the definition to include children of any background or disability (eliminating the exclusion clause) in the belief that anyone can have a learning disability  (Cruickshank, 1976). With no clear-cut set of symptoms, the one overriding problem that unites the field has been a lingering concern about reading disability.  Regardless of orientation of theorists---"All approaches . . . acknowledge that reading generally is a problem for most children with severe learning disabilities" (Cartwright, Cartwright, & Ward, 1989), p 256).

Learning Disabilities Criteria

Among many concerns about the examination process, one deals with the validity and reliability of the particular test instruments used and the judgments made by persons who use test scores in their decisions.  Another is concern about the validity of conditions thought to cause learning problems, and the ability of existing testing procedures to identify them.  There is also concern that remediation of such conditions or underlying process will not actually benefit the child.  Also, the alternative to learning disabilities may be to view the nature of instruction to be the root cause of many learning problems.

Validity and reliability of tests.  The assessment process is sometimes based on statistical regression analyses, which has two distinct problems:  (a) students are not likely to have uniform performance in all traits measured, which does not mean that low trait scores are necessarily deficient, and (b) regression analyses tends to underestimate at the low end and overestimate at the high end.  Evans (1992) argued that the regression model does not accurately assess a severe discrepancy between IQ and achievement scores because there is a bias in the detection of severe discrepancy at lower score levels.

Due to an increase in poor and minority children, children with language or cultural differences or minimal learning problems, although excluded in the definition, have been classified as learning disabled in order to get them some extra help (Jost, 1993).  Many of these children have different oral and literacy traditions, and they would formerly have been removed from consideration because of the restriction that problems not be the result from "environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage" (Federal Register 42:163, 29 December, 1977, 65083).  But resistance to considering children "disadvantaged" because of their cultures or ethnicity invites the classification of these children.

Validity of conditions.  If differences in the rate of learning and levels of achievement could be reliably established as nothing more than predictable and natural developmental variations, the concept of learning disabilities would be meaningless.  If it were possible to isolate specific syndromes that have diagnostic and educational relevance, something that is still debated even among specialists in learning disabilities, then the concept of learning disabilities would have meaning and usefulness.  Furthermore, if it were possible to know the effects of contextual factors in achievement, a better understanding of academic success and failure may be revealed for all learners.  Thus far there has been only gross statistical evidence of the existence of a population who share the common experience of poor reading achievement and a mixture of other heterogeneous characteristics.

In correlational studies, intelligence scores and reading ability have a positive relationship (about +.60)), which can be interpreted to mean that two-thirds of the relationship between intelligence and reading is explained by other factors.  Rutter and Yule (1973) compared groups of subjects who were poor readers.  Using probability theory, they estimated that only 2.28% of students are expected to read at levels as low or lower than two-standard deviations below the mean.  Assuming reading ability performance to be normally distributed and using reading accuracy as the criterion, Rutter and Yule reported that 6.3% of students had scores two sigmas below the mean.  Using reading comprehension as the criterion, it reached 9.3%.  They concluded there is  a "large abnormal hump" on the normal distribution caused by the existence of a group of students having normal intelligence and severe reading disabilities.  They interpreted this as support for the existence a specific reading retardation syndrome (presumably this represents either 4.02% or 7.02% more poor readers than would be predictable in terms of the lower end of the continuum of a normal distribution of reading skills).  Furthermore, poor reading for these youngsters could not be accounted for in terms of low intelligence, although there was a greater incidence of speech and language problems, and more boys than girls.

Assuming reading ability to be normally distributed, the group of poor readers may be comprised of many kinds of children: those with neurological disorders, low intelligence, average intelligence, high intelligence, different cultural and familial influences, variable family size, different social classes, different birth order, variable interest shown by parents in academic subjects, different schools attended, and many different teachers and types of instruction used, among others.

Instructional deficiency. It can be argued that environmental factors may also be the cause of learning differences.  The overlap between normal readers and learning disabled populations on test performance is so great that a search for profiles to distinguish learning disabled subgroups is a fruitless effort.  Instructional programs provided to young children may have a significant influence on learning differences.  Of all the essential reading skills acquired in twelve years of schooling, approximately 85% are introduced to children by the end of the third grade.  Children who do not acquire the "skills" of reading introduced in the first few years fail, and the label LD may be applied.

Underachieving children typically lack the same orality and pre-school literacy as children from middle class homes.  Reading and writing are introduced in a more "natural" context for most middle and upper class children, where parents use literacy daily and read to their children, provide pencils and crayons, and encourage reading and play literacy games.  This group of children typically succeeds in school, and many already read before they enter school.  Family "characteristics such as academic guidance, attitude toward education and aspirations of parent for the child, conversations in the home, reading materials and cultural activities contribute more directly to early reading achievement and account for considerably more variance than socioeconomic status" (Mason & Allen, 1986, p. 7).  The strongest influence on a child's achievement and motivation is the set of family characteristics, values, and attitudes toward achievement and education (Auerbach, 1989).  "(C)hildren whose home literacy practices most closely resemble those of the school are more successful in school" (Auerbach, 1989, p. 167).
 Some children may be observed in classrooms who are actively involved in reading much of the time, seemingly oblivious to the surroundings, noises, and movement of others.  Most poor readers are off task much of the time and easily distracted.  But these differences, which are often noted in the diagnosis of learning disabilities, may also be the result of the teacher's behavior as much as learner characteristics.  Collins (1982) reported that children of working class and minority backgrounds and poor readers, regardless of class or minority distinction, are treated differentially by teachers.  They receive much less comprehension instruction and attention of the teacher.

Nickse (1990) asks if schools should change the behavior of children to match the school's requirements, or should the school match the child's culture?  Auerbach (1989) recommends that information and values of the family be used to design programs.  Teaching would be developed for a particular setting for learners within a meaningful context (Isserlis 1990), which presumably would create more successful readers and fewer reading problems.

Research on ability groupings for reading shows differing instructional and social experiences for children, and these differences have learning effects (Paris, Wixson, & Palinscar, 1986).  Some research indicates the basal reading approach is not particularly effective with children from low-socioeconomic families (Stice & Beertrand, 1990; Zarillo, 1987).  The lack of cultural relevance in basal series may be a problem for many learners who have different life experiences.  Complicating it further is that the skills orientation of basal series are fragmented and detrimental to native speakers of English, and a particular hindrance to poor and minority children (Good, Goodman, & Flores, 1982).

Reading Instruction and Learning

Common reading instruction may be detrimental to most children, mainstream children, the culturally different, and those diagnosed as learning disabled.  Children are routinely put into "low" to "high" ability groups for reading instruction, creating different instructional and social experiences. Children in low-ability groups receive much more piecemeal instruction: isolated letters and sounds, grapheme-phoneme combinations, and controlled vocabulary, work sheets, all of which conspire to reduce the reading experience to bits and pieces.  Allington (1984) reported that children in the first-grade "high group" were presented an average of 1,100 words to read each week, but the "low groups" received only 400.  Children who can sit still for long periods of time, attend to the teacher, and follow directions will generally do well in school, although they may not enjoy it.  Children who cannot sit still will disrupt the classroom and complicate the teacher's job. The school demands that children adapt to the school's expectations, and schools do not easily accommodate to differences found among children.  In any case, many children find it difficult to adapt to the studious requirements of the classroom.

Considerable attention has been placed on changing the attitudes of mainstream teachers and providing them with inservice training to accommodate students with disabilities.  But Bloom (1980) reported that attitudes and other traits of teachers, such as training and test scores related to fields of teaching, have negligible correlations with student learning.  To improve learning, the focus should be on teaching and learning conditions of pupils, one of which is the milieu of the classroom.

As Anastasia (1976) cautioned, behavior of students does not occur in a vacuum, because the particular environmental context determines the nature of responses.  Learning is greatly the result of an interaction of respondent and situational variables.  Almost all of the attention is focused on the student and not the surrounding environment or the teacher's behavior.  Seldom is there a probe of the situational factors that can interfere with learning (Wallace & Larsen, 1978; Ysseldyke & Christenson, 1987).  It is a central hypothesis of this proposal that many problems of disabled pupils in inclusion classrooms are caused and/or worsened by unacceptable environmental and instructional conditions.

The task for the child with disabilities in the regular classroom environment is difficult, especially students with auditory, attention, auditory processing, or comprehension problems.  Students must have access to multiple sources of information.  Information should be audible and/or visible to improve understanding and comprehension.  Under conditions of a mainstream classroom the student and teacher must engage in a process of communication, most of it emanating from the teacher.  Regardless of other factors, such as the motivation or the special services provided by special education personnel, any child who cannot see and hear clearly will be penalized.  Consider the following figure:

Anything that interferes with any of these variables will degrade the learning process.  Assuming that opportunity and motivation are high, the process can, nonetheless, be undermined by poor instruction.  Assuming instructional quality to also be high, any environmental problem can cause the process to collapse, notably noise and lack of visual cues.  Instructional strategies are critically dependent upon the ability to hear and to see clearly. Good acoustic listening conditions are vital for students with hearing loss in order to enable them to make the maximum use of their aided residual hearing (Graham & Fraser, 1993) and also for other pupils.  Poor classroom acoustics interfere with the ability to understand speech and can lead to frustration and decreased on-task behavior.  The effect of poor room acoustics is most detrimental to students with hearing impairments, attention disorders, and problems with comprehension, characteristics of a large segment of disabled pupils.

Another important acoustical element in the classroom is the distance between the teacher and the student.  The farther away the student from the teacher, the less the S/N ratio.  While it might be recommended that this distance for students with hearing loss, as well as pupils with other conditions, should be no more than six feet (Ling, 1989), the constant movement of teachers and students in the classroom make this difficult to achieve.

As indicated previously, teachers do not use technology and media in classrooms to support their presentations (Joyce, Hersh, & McKibbin, 1983), and they tend to view media  negatively (Dodge, H., Brogdan, R., Brogdan, N. & Lewis, R. 1974).  Teachers rarely use any form of media, including overhead transparencies, models, tapes, videos, or  even pictures in books and magazines (Heinich, Molenda, & Russell 1989).  For any child, and particularly those dependent on multiple sources of information, this is extremely detrimental to achievement.

Hasselbring (1994) discussed the "curricular embellishment" approach using the existing curriculum and embellishing it with media.  This permits the teacher to proceed as usual, which reduces tensions about making dramatic changes in the inclusion classroom to accommodate students with disabilities.  Hasselbring maintains that instructional opportunities can be enhanced with  media, basing the approach on learning theory pertaining to the enhancement of listening comprehension.

Creating a "mental model" during a lesson is greatly enhanced if a student has visual images to help generate mental images (Glenberg, Meyer, & Lindem, 1987; Johnson-Laird, 1983; McNamara, Millin & Bansford, 1991).  An example of information that can support mental-model construction is the simple use of visual illustrations.  Computer generated materials using "presentation graphics" are simple to create, can be electronically stored, and can be used repeatedly by the teacher in subsequent lessons and classes.  This is a simple but important innovation because students rely on extra linguistic information to support learning, such as visual context.

Too much reliance in the classroom on oral presentation can defeat the instructional goals of the teacher, but oral presentation may be enhanced if the lesson is accompanied by visual illustrations.  Any kind of visual information presented by the teacher to accompany the lesson can support the major points presented, maintain attention, and improve comprehension.  Graphics, actual scenes, pictures, and large text fonts can produce higher achievement and assist students in generating mental frameworks of knowledge.  Kemp and Smellie (1989) contend that the following outcomes can be achieved with use of media for instruction:

•   Content can be selected and better organized.
•   Instruction can be more standardized.
•   Interest in instruction can be higher.
•   Learning can be more interactive.
•   Instructional time can be reduced.
•   Quality of learning can be higher.
•   Instruction can be more mobile.
•   Attitudes of learners can be enhanced.
•   The instructor's role can be enhanced.

While teachers may be prepared to provide students with a variety of accommodations and management approaches, they do not have the knowledge, sills or technology to reduce or eliminate the effects of noise generated within and outside the classroom.  For hearing impaired and other students, noise is a pervasive problem interfering with understanding the teacher and following classroom routines.  Additionally, instructions presented orally are not frequently accompanied by graphic illustrations.  Amplified sound and use of presentation graphics, relatively low-cost devices, may dramatically enhance classroom instruction for all students in the classroom.  The proposed study will investigate the effects of these low-cost enhancements in mainstream classrooms.

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