Learning Disabilities and Learning

¶ … deficits of students with mathematics disabilities?

Mathematical skills are definitely just as crucial as literacy and reading skills when it comes to succeeding at school and beyond. Of late, researchers and policymakers have focused considerably on reading; the latter's attention was manifest in the 2001 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. While reading deficiencies are commonly believed to be one among the main characteristics of learning-disabled pupils, mathematical disabilities pose an issue just as serious as reading in case of several learning-disabled pupils and might, in fact, be just as common as reading deficits.

Although cognitive skills (including intelligence quotient), educational experience, drive, etc. might challenge mathematical ability development, a major probable barrier is DD or Developmental Dyscalculia, a numeracy-specific developmental learning problem impacting roughly three to six percent of persons' school-level mathematical skill acquisition (Price, 2013). DD-related studies have revealed a broad array of mathematical skill-related behavioral deficiencies. But researchers are yet to identify a key selection of behavioral indicatorsconsistent across studies. Such general inconsistency may arise because of a couple of fundamental factors, besides the relative inattention to DD. Firstly, variations in research criteria for identifying students suffering from difficulties in the numeracy arena has hampered the attainment of consensus with regard to DD'sdefining aspects. Secondly, there is no consensus with regard to DD's behavioral profile: numerical ability is intrinsically heterogeneous and susceptible to disturbanceby variousinternal and external sources (Price, 2013).

2. Discuss how parents can help their child with learning disabilities at home?

The learning discipline aims at understanding the association between learning, mental development, and social interaction using principles from the disciplines of psychology, education, neuroscience, and machine learning. Scholastic courses and lesson plans frequently incorporate technology for ensuring students across different grades with different ability levels can learn easily. With the provision of specialized features in mainstream products, disabled children can interact with technologies in class progressively more and educators can also increasingly tailor content to meet children's diverse preferences or needs (O'Connell, Freed, & Rothberg, 2010).

Kids facing difficulties with learning math can record what the teacher teaches and says in class using iPods or iPhones for later use at home; this will aid parents in assisting them with learning and completion of homework. Further, Grapher and Calculator apps' audio-visual features may aid such pupils in understanding and remembering equations (O'Connell, Freed, & Rothberg, 2010).

An oft-utilized parental test is the NUCALC (Neuropsychological Test Battery for Number Processing and Calculation in Children) which makes kids perform mathematical exercises entailing speaking or writing (e.g., counting backward). It affords educators and parents a better grasp of children's thoughts regarding, and understanding of, math. Various screening instruments help gauge children's grasp of shapes. For instance, if a child provided with a rectangular object cannot recognize it when depicted from another angle on paper might suffer from visual-spatial ability deficits (Morin, 2014).

3. How can the analysis of a student's mathematical errors help the teacher to plan instruction?

Error Pattern Analysis is an appraisal approach that permits teachers to figure out if the students are committing continuous errors when performing fundamental computations. By pinpointing the errors of the student, teachers can then specifically plan instruction to meet the student's unique needs. While there are basic errors that students with learning disabilities make, they may exhibit error patterns that are specific to that individual (Specialconnections, n.d.).

This also provides the teacher with an opportunity and an effective and efficient method for finding out specific errors of the students that they might be facing in math. By finding out the consistent inaccurate way that the student is using to solve math problems, the teacher can then specifically plan out instructions in order to assist that student and help him learn the procedure and solve the problems (Specialconnections, n.d.).

4. Discuss the potential behavioral characteristics of students with learning disabilities.

Learning-disabled pupils aren't a homogeneous cluster. Rather, they make up a diverse student population displaying potential issues in various areas. For instance, a given learning-disabled child might suffer considerable reading difficulty, whereas another might have perfect reading skills but considerable issues with writing (NASET, 2014). Such disabilities might range in severity from mild to severe. Further, different children depict different coping levels. Some effectively adapt to their difficulty such that they aren't considered disabled whereas otherstudents struggle all their life with doing even 'simple' tasks. In spite of such variances, learning disability invariably surface in childhood years and remain for life. With time, however, experts, teachers and parents have identified various learning disability-linked characteristics (NASET, 2014).

Scholars have identified the following nine behavioral and learning issues in learning disabled children:

• Inattention issues

• Reading problems

• Weak motor abilities

• Deficits when it comes to written language

• Oral language deficits

• Quantitative disorders

• Social skills deficiencies

• Psychological process deficiencies and • Information processing issues (NASET, 2014)

5. Identify the principles for developing culturally responsive relationships.

Identifying Personal Cultural Views and Prejudices: Teachers can benefit from exploring and reflecting upon the origins of their attitudes, prejudices andideas, and from understanding that their worldview results in behavior misreading and unequal treatment of children from diverse cultures. Such a situation may lead an educator to seek special education referrals in ordinarily developing (i.e., non-disabled) children (MCUE, 2008).

Children's Cultural Setting- Related Knowledge: Besides recognizing personal prejudices, educators must understand pupils' cultural backgrounds for developing cross-cultural interactional ability. Broad knowledge on pupils' ethnic/cultural groups will help teachers better understand their behavior, learning and communication approaches, manners and rules of propriety. But educators must refrain from developing stereotypes. Knowledge of foreign cultures will serveas the firewall against wrong special education referrals (MCUE, 2008).