LEARNING DISABILITIES

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LEARNING DISABILITIES

• KNR 270

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Learning Disabilities

• Individuals with learning disabilities have above
  average, average, or near average intelligence
• They experience academic and social difficulties
• Have highly variable characteristics or needs
• Range from mild to severe

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What is a Learning Disability?

• Neurological disorders
• Interferes with a persons ability to store,
  process, or produce information
• Creates a gap between ability and performance
• Tests
• Difference between ability performance

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Is this a Disability of Kids?

• Often first recognized during childhood or school
• LD is not cured and doesnt go away
• People learn to compensate
• Famous people
• Bruce Jenner
• Greg Louganis
• Whoopee
• Others?

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Problems

• Reading
• Writing
• Speaking
• Computing math
• Coordination
• Attention
• Social skills

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Social Skills

• Language skills
• Choose right time to speak, find right words,
  understand what is said
• Reading non-verbal information
• Understanding different situations
• Impulsivity
• Segregated classes deprive opportunities to learn
  social skills

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Types of Learning Disabilities

• Dyslexia
• Language processing and its impact on reading,
  writing, and spelling
• Dysgraphia
• Writing, motor patterns in writing, spelling
• Dyscalculia
• Math, memory of math facts, concepts of time,
  money

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Types of Learning Disabilities

• Dyspraxia
• Motor planning, coordination of body movements
• Auditory discrimination
• Differences in speech sounds
• Visual perception
• Notice details and assign meaning to what was
  seen
• And many other types

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Dyslexia

• Most common learning disability
• 80 of LD dyslexia
• 1/5 students have dyslexia
• May have with other LD
• Developmental coordination disorder
• Awkward
• Clumsy
• Waugh Sherrill, 2004

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Learning Disabilities Co-occur with

• Attention deficits
• Hyperactivity
• 12-14

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Prevalence

• 2.7 to 30
• 15 million children, adolescents, adults in US
• 5-10 of school-age children
• 2.8 million children served under IDEA
• 51 of entire identified special education
  population
• 27-46 of students in college have a learning
  disability

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Without Help

• 27-35 do not finish high school
• 62 were not fully employed 1 year after
  graduating from high school

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Causes

• Frequently no apparent cause
• Heredity
• Disturbances of central nervous system
• Problems during pregnancy and childbirth
• Incidents after birth
• Head injuries, nutritional deprivation, exposure
  to toxic substances

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Signs of LD

• Often spelling the same word differently in a
  single document
• Reluctance to take on reading or writing tasks
• Weak memory skills
• Slow work pace
• Inattention to details or excessive focus on them
• Frequent misreading of information
• Easily confused by instructions

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Dyslexia ConcernsWaugh Sherrill, 2004

• Vision reading
• Confuses letters, numbers, verbal explanations
• Needs time to process
• Reads rereads with little comprehension
• Lacks depth perception peripheral vision

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Dyslexia ConcernsWaugh Sherrill, 2004

• Hearing speech
• Distracted by extraneous sounds
• Hard time putting thoughts into words
• Leave sentences incomplete
• Writing
• Trouble writing or copying information
• Handwriting is varied or illegible

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Dyslexia ConcernsWaugh Sherrill, 2004

• Motor skills
• Clumsiness or lack of coordination
• Difficulty with fine /or gross motor skills
• Confuses left/right, up/down
• Math
• Dependence on finger counting

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Dyslexia ConcernsWaugh Sherrill, 2004

• Time management
• Difficulty telling managing time
• Difficulty being on time
• Problems learning in sequence
• Memory cognition
• Excellent LTM for experiences, locations faces
• Thinks with images feelings , not sounds or
  words (little internal dialogue)

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Dyslexia ConcernsWaugh Sherrill, 2004

• Behavior, health, personality
• Keeps items in disorderly manner or compulsively
  orderly
• Class clown, trouble maker, recluse
• High or low tolerance for pain
• Strives for perfection
• Mistakes increase with time pressure, emotional
  stress, poor health
• Zones out, day dreams

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Important to Know

• Strengths challenges
• Tests
• Results
• Employers schools will need
• Description of learning disability
• Accommodations

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Legislation

• Children youth IDEA
• College ADA Rehab Act of 1973
• Must self-identify and provide documentation of
  disability to receive accommodations
• Extra time to complete exams
• Exams read orally, dictated
• Quiet place to take exam
• Using a computer
• Others?
• ADA

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Considerations/Accommodations

• 4 strategies
• Learning environment
• Learning style based instruction
• Visual imagery
• Self-esteem
• Waugh Sherrill, 2004

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Learning Styles

• Different approaches or ways of learning
• Everybody has a preferred style
• Knowing that style can help a person learn more
  effectively
• Lots of self assessments

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Learning Styles

• Visual learners learn through seeing
• Need to see body language facial expression
• Prefer to sit in front of class
• Think in pictures
• Learn best from visual displays (overheads,
  PowerPoint, videos, etc.)
• May take detailed notes to help absorb information

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Learning Styles

• Auditory learners learn through listening
• Verbal lectures
• Discussions
• Talking things out and hearing what others say
• Reading text aloud
• Written information will have little meaning
  until it is heard

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Learning Styles

• Tactile/kinesthetic learners learn through
  moving, doing, touching.
• Hands-on
• Hard to sit still for long periods
• May become distracted and need activity or
  exploration

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Pair Share

• Identify groups learning styles
• Lesson plan for your group
• Teach card game

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Considerations/Accommodations

• Provide objectives for learning practice
• Behavior expectations
• On poster (visual)
• Repeat frequently (auditory)
• Give minutes on task, remind of remaining minutes
• Allow extra time for reading

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Considerations/Accommodations

• Use multisensory approaches
• Visual
• Diagrams, handouts, demonstrations, observations
• Hands on
• Auditory
• Clear verbal instructions
• Tape instructions

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Reference

• Lorraine C. Peniston
• Developing recreation skills in persons with
  learning disabilities
• Champaign, IL Sagamore Publishing
• 1998