Paper Topic:

Learning Disabilities

Running head : Learning Disabilities

Learning Disabilities

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POSITION OUTLINE

Puzzling is the term teachers use to describe students with learning disabilities . They tell us that these students look entirely normal seem intelligent , carry on intelligent conversations - that they don 't appear to any different than other students . Yet these students have difficulty doing certain tasks - not all- in school . Some have difficulty reading others perform poorly in spelling still others make frequent mistakes in math . Teachers in

many schools tell us that these students are very hard to teach - that they simply do not learn in the same ways or as easily as others their age . They tell us that these students have special needs and are not easy to teach in large classes in which most other students perform reasonably well . They tell us that modifying instruction so that these students can profit from teaching is an intricate process

Because of the heterogeneous nature of this group of children , the concept of specific learning disabilities has been hard to define or describe in few sentence or by a numerical score such as an IQ or by a decibel loss . Furthermore , because the field has been of interest to educators , psychologists , psychiatrists , neurophysiologists pediatricians , ophthalmologists , optometrists , speech pathologists , and others , the problem has been viewed in each of those disciplines from different perspectives . Hence there is really the need for several definitions for learning disabilities and thus we can conclude that its definition is defined in case to case ' basis

I . Definition of Learning Disabilities

Historically , the following terms were used to name children with Learning disabilities ? perceptually handicapped ? brain injured ? neurologically impaired

Then , there came two broad aspects of concern in defining and or identifying those children

biological etiology- minimal brain dysfunction , psychoneurological learning diss

behavior - developmental disparity in psychological processes developmental imbalance

The definition of learning disabilities in an educational term has derived its heritage from ? neurology ? psychology ? speech pathology ? ophthalmology ? remedial reading

Wiederholt (1984 ) has traced the history of Learning disability and has delineated three dimensions of diss namely (1 ) diss of the spoken language studied primarily by neurologists and

ophthalmologists such as ? Samuel Kirk developed a test , the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities , for use in describing language functioning and developing remedial programs

diss of written language represented mostly by psychologists speech pathologists , and educators such as ? Grace Fernald established a clinic at UCLA where she perfected remedial reading and spelling techniques

diss of perceptual and motor behaviors studied mostly by a number of disciplines such as ? Goldstein , Werner and Strauss as pioneers of the field which listed the

following behavioral characteristics that differentiated between those with and

those without brain injuries : excessive motor activity , hyperactivity

awkwardness and consistently poor motor performance , erratic behavior poor

organization , high distractibility and faulty perceptions (like reversals ) and ? Samuel Orton was a neurologist who believed that lack of cerebral dominance was a cause of language diss...

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