Disabilities and related topics: scope and specifications

¶ … Causes as Well as the Available Approaches Affecting Learning Abilities

The Legislative perspective

The need for early intervention

The theory behind learning disabilities

Approaches of teaching children with Learning disabilities

Constructivist theory and its application

Behaviorist theory and its application

In this paper, we explore the concept of teaching student with learning disabilities. The concept of learning disabilities is defined and then the constructivist and behaviorist approaches to tackling the problem are presented. This is followed with a conclusion on how to best improve the quality of education for children with learning disabilities.

Learning disability is defined by the Pastor and Reuben (2002) as a disorder that affects a single or more of a person's basic psychological processes that are involved in active understanding or use in a given language that is spoken or written and may manifest itself in the inability to speak, listen, read, write as well as perform mathematical calculations. According to Pastor and Reuben (2002) the above definition is the one that is provided by the Federal legislation in the regulation of educational services that takes place in public schools. Therefore, learning disability can be regarded as a neurological disorder which affect the ability of an individual's brain to process as well as respond to various types of information. Learning disability can also be regarded as the unexplained form of difficulty of an individual in the acquisition of basic academic learning skills. The intelligence of a given person must however be noted to be average or above average. A student who has learning difficulties may not necessarily suffer from sensory problems such as hearings impairment and blindness but would still be in the struggle to be at per with the other individuals of their age group in the learning functions as well as participation in the regular, day-to-day activities. It is worth noting to LD is never a single disorder but is made up of a large group of disorders.

The U.S. Office of Education (1977) defines learning disabilities as disorders that affect psychological processing that comes about as a consequence of lacking at least one of the many academic skills. It is worth noting that a child who has been given this label does not necessarily suffer from mental retardation, major disabilities as well as behavioral disorders. Lerner (2003) indicated that a child who has LS has a lot of difficulty in various processing skills like memory, perception, visual, auditory perception as well as thinking. This in turn leads them to have various problems in mathematics, reading, oral language, writing, study skill difficulties, self-esteem, self-control as well as attention as pointed out by Mercer (1997)

The Issues, the causes as well as the available approaches affecting learning abilities

Whenever an individual becomes a victim of learning disabilities, several very clear differences may exists between their levels of achievement as well as the general level of expectorations together with the various difficulties that they face while executing their daily lives.

The difficulties in learning as well as achievement may successfully be manifested via several phases of the development. These individuals also exhibit a lot of difficulties in their emotional and social skills. According to Brown (2003) and Geary (2005), learning disabilities can affect an individual's basic skills of comprehension, listening, reading, writing, reasoning, speaking as well as calculating. Because learning disability is never a form of a disease but is probably genetically inherited or could be genetically caused disorder coupled with the fact that there is no known cure, it can effectively be controlled via identification, modification as well as accommodation. The process of identification involves the positive recognition of the condition in people in order to institute adequate support that is to be provided by their parents, doctors as well as teachers. Complicated cases may require seeking help from a learning specialist. Several kinds of interventions may be provided depending on the type of learning disability, age of the person as well as the level of severity. The victims have the right to exclusive assistance in the classroom as well as at school as a whole. Should they be employed, they must be provided with special educational and employment benefits as pointed out by Thompson (1998).

The Legislative perspective

In regard to legislation, the persons with learning disabilities are protected by the with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1997 as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990.These legislations were put in place so that individuals of are entitled to all forms of assistance as well as be protected from all forms of discrimination. Another important legislation is the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 (UK), an act which discourages discrimination on disability grounds (Thomson,2001).

The need for early intervention

The learning disabilities in school-going children forms a special area of children study and the condition should be identified early when the children are still at school in order for the special provisions as well as aids to be provided. Brown (2003) pointed out that the early identification is important in helping the children to be academically, psychologically as well as social sound.Should children exhibit sings of learning disabilities, inability to learn or attention deficits, it is important to contact the school authorities in order for them to provide for these children's special needs (Cambridge et al., 2005).In this manner, the children can develop the necessary learning skills, social skills, motor coordination as well as good behavior. The early signs and symptoms of learning disabilities must be detected as early as possible in order to avert the problems that might face the child in the future (Gates et al., 1997). Should the symptoms of learning disabilities be detected in a child, there is a need to engage early interventions using specialized teaching strategies in order to help them overcome the difficulties that they may face in their learning process. It is therefore the role of parents, physicians and relatives of the affected children to help them comprehend that should they be suffering due to the problem, there is a way of helping them. The children who suffer from learning difficulties are entitled to special legislative as well as social protection that places emphasis on the provision of highly specialized educatio0nal help as well as other forms of assistance in schools as well as during any other social engagement.

The theory behind learning disabilities

There are several theories that have been advanced in an effort of explaining the vase of learning disabilities that is witnessed in schools today. Geary (2005) postulated the role of cognitive theory in the explanation of learning disability in school children. There is some basic research in the concept of mathematical disability but it is still in its infancy. The work of Geary has an emphasis on the need to create a close link between empirical research and theoretical frameworks in order to fully comprehend the development of a school child's arithmetical, numerical as well as mathematical competencies. The empirical research can be beneficial in the transformation of the experimental procedures in the judging of problems into the assessment measures as well as in the understanding of the roots of the existing problems via cognitive theory. This is achieved by appraising the cognitive strengths as well as weaknesses of the young children using

The work of Eisenmajer et al. (2005) clearly specified the various characteristics of learning disabilities by separating the specific reading disabilities (SRD) as well as the specific language impairments (SLI). They argued that several children who are tested for either SLI or SRD tend to exhibit impairment in oral language development as well as reading at the same time. They indicated that there is a need for the profiles children with the reading and oral impairment to be compared with those of group of children exhibiting both SLI and SRD.

Approaches of teaching children with Learning disabilities

The approaches of teaching children learning disabilities are based upon the theories of constructivism and behaviorism.

Constructivist theory and its application

The use of instructions that are based on the constructivist theory is applied in several general education classes in various educational institutions (Brooks & Brooks, 1999).One of the main ideas which is associated with the constructivist theory maintains that the process of learning must be meaningful as well as related to practical and real life situations as pointed out by Grobecker (1999). For instance when teaching children how to make change in a given currency such as the dollar, it best to provide them with the actual dollar (money) instead of the figures only. Children with learning disabilities are likely to benefit from the constructivist approach.

Duhaney & Duhaney (2000) pointed out that teachers who employ the constructivist approach in their teaching base their instructions on the knowledge / foundation that the students already have. This means that for them to introduce a new idea, they must first of all discusses with the students some related ideas that the students are already familiar with. This practice is very helpful to children with learning difficulties due to their low self-esteem as well as experience with repeated failure. Other techniques like brainstorming and mapping are recommended by Ellis (1997).

The other principle which underlies the constructivist approach is a deep focus on main ideas as well as relationships within the key ideas that lie within a given subject area (Grobecker, 1999). The application of this principle means that a teacher must stress the various connections of the more important concepts that form the main idea for a given discipline as opposed to teaching several bits of knowledge which are isolated.