Teaching Students to Learn With Learning Disabilities

1. Teaching Students to LearnWith Learning Disabilities By Heather Nordman CEP 841

2. Abstract As I sit back and think about my past and those teachers that were there to help me, I can freshly remember being told how dumb and stupid I was. Those words hurt me then and they really haunt me now. I can’t even imagine using that type of language in this day in age and get away with it. I want to break this paper down so that others can have a better understanding of what learning disabilities are all about and turn this information around to help their own students.

3. Introduction When I was growing up I was diagnosed with a learning disability in reading. I was told, in not such nice words, that I would never be able to read. I remember very clearly being told that I was dumb and stupid and those words were spoken by teachers and the specialists who were there to help me. As I grew up I fought my way out of the special education system to prove to all of them that I could make it and that I could be more than they ever thought I could be. I look back at those times in my life and it pushes me to become an advocate for my students and their families with learning disabilities and to encourage them to never give up, but to keep reaching for their own dreams. This paper is not only to help me learn more about learning disabilities and how to help others, but I also do this research for the students that I haven’t even met along my own path of teaching in hopes that I can become the teacher they need me to be to help them reach their dreams.

4. Problem Statement • As I have already stated in the above comments one can see why I feel so compelled to learn and teach in this area of education. I think that my experience is one that has been experienced by others of my same generation and maybe other generations too. My hope is that no other generations have to experience the negative connotations that seem to be related to any type of disability. • Sometimes Learning Disabilities are either looked over or not viewed as big a deal as other disabilities and the other times they are viewed as huge obstacles that any one student could never overcome. But working together I am hoping to find some inspiring stories along with the facts and statistics that can encourage us all to reach for the stars. • I am driven to learn all I can about learning disabilities to help all my present students and their families, along with the students and families I haven’t even met yet. I know that I am on this path to bring promise to those in need and I hope that I can fulfill the need of all my students and their families with the things I learn and those that I can teach.

5. Definitions and Descriptions • Learning disabilities (LD) is a term that is used to describe a group of neurological conditions that interfere with a person’s ability to learn. Some of the disorders that fall under this category are; listening, speaking, reasoning, mathematical calculations and reading. Prior to 1937 learning disabilities were not recognized. But in 1937 Samuel Orton, a neuropathologist, used the term “strephosymbolia” to describe the problem he noted while observing children with reading difficulties. These students were reversing letters such as bandd, or words such as saw and was, he thought that this was caused by a failure on one side of the brain. • It wasn’t until the 1970’s when emphasis was placed on learning more about learning disabilities and its subtypes. The most significant event that happened was the passage of Public Law 94-142; The Education of All handicapped Children Act, by Congress in 1975. This law guaranteed that each handicapped child, age three to twenty-one, would receive a “free and appropriate” education in the “least restrictive environment” possible. This law is also referred to as the “mainstreaming” law. Mainstreaming is a term used to describe placing a child with various handicaps into a regular classroom with student with little to no disabilities.

6. Definitions and Descriptions • Then in 1990, Public Law 94-142 was expanded and renamed, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Public law 101-476, and further identified learning disabilities; “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 do mathematical calculations. This 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, of mental retardation, o f emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.” (Harwell, pg 4) • Having these more defined descriptions has helped teachers identify students whom may otherwise be left to fight to learn on their own. Before these moments in history students with learning disabilities were not recognized to receive help from the school or state. Only students with more severe or visible disabilities were offered help. As if having any sort of disability isn’t hard enough, having a disability that no one can see or recognize can be even more frustrating and discouraging.

7. Facts, Statistics, Incidence • According to research conducted in 1999 it was believed that at least five percent of the population (12 million Americans) had learning disabilities (Smith, 1999). However some authorities believe this number could be higher if all students who were struggling in school had the chance to be evaluated for learning disabilities. It seems that many students go along their school career struggling to get by but never seem to get singled out to get a formal evaluation. Many of these students are viewed to be lazy and not trying hard enough. • Some confusion had occurred with trying to understand what learning disabilities were. This confusion came from the trickling down effect of information being shared among experts, teachers, and parents. One reason for this is that the term Learning Disabilities refers not to one single disorder but to a broad range of handicaps that affect many areas of academic performance.

8. Facts, Statistics, Incidence When reviewing student with learning disabilities there seems to common thread of problematic behaviors that seem to be associated with them, such as: • Short attention span • Difficulty following directions • Social immaturity • Difficulty with conversations • Inflexibility • Poor planning and organizational skills • Absentmindedness • Clumsiness • Lack of impulse control (Smith, 1999) These behaviors seem to come from some neurological conditions that cause problems with learning. But students who are not assessed as having a LD are many times viewed as just being lazy and not giving their full effort in school. This can be very frustrating for the student when they know that they are giving all they can and it is still not good enough for those who a evaluating them.

9. Facts, Statistics, Incidence Current literature and research has revealed a number of causes of learning disabilities that are under study. Among them are as follows: • There is a strong familial factor. It is not uncommon to find that several members of the same family have learning disabilities (LD). Research is showing that LD can be inherited. • The incidence of learning disabilities increases when there is a difficult pregnancy or delivery. This includes prenatal complications as well as postnatal trauma. • Early childhood exposure to lead, aluminum, arsenic, mercury, and other neurotoxins have also been linked to causing learning disabilities. • Currently more boys than girls are identified with LD, the ratio is 3 to1. • Eighty percent of student identified with LD have problems with reading. • Students with LD are usually identified by third or fourth grade. • Students with LD tend to have deficits with short term memory issues. • Students with LD are not as socially acceptable as other students. • As many as 50 percent of students with LD drop out of high school. • Students with LD are more likely to encounter trouble with the law. • Parents of students with LD expect less from their children. • It takes the LD student more than the average of twenty-two exposures of a piece of information for them to retain it. • Students with LD find it very difficult to express themselves through written communications. (Harwell, 2008)

10. Facts, Statistics, Incidence When looking at the law it is important to remember that both students and teachers have rights to protect themselves. Students have the following rights under the law: • Expect a safe learning environment. • Receive a free and appropriate education. • Be provided accommodations for helping them learn. • Be treated with respect at all times. • Be heard in defense of any charges. • Receive due process with any hearing against them. • Receive a prompt hearing if he is suspended of faces expulsion.

11. Facts, Statistics, Incidence Teachers have the following rights: • Have the right to work in a safe environment • Have a right to be treated with respect. • Have the right to be able to teach. • They have the obligation to notify parents before any type of evaluation on their child. • They have to follow the guidelines stated in the law. • They should respect that the students and parents have rights under the law as well. (Harwell, 2008) • An interesting fact about the lack of phonological processing is that these students could not only have problem with processing reading, but it can also manifest in other forms as well. These students could also have problems following oral directions, reading aloud in class, or have an error in following vocal instructions to follow an assignment. Since this disorder occurs in the region of the brain that processes sound, these particular students would benefit from visual cues for any directions, instructions or assignments.

12. Implications • In 2005 the National Assessment of Educational Progress claimed that 50 percent of adults who had below-average or basic reading skills were unemployed in 2003 (Harwell, 2008). This is a scary number when you think about how many students go through school without being identified as having learning disabilities and do not get help. If we can’t help them in school, they certainly don’t get help later in life and perhaps not even hold down a job. • With research showing that eighty percent of students having LD fall into having problems with reading, it appears that this deficit is a phonological processing issue. This will cause a delay in phonemic awareness that will later affect a delay in the ability in reading later. With the delay in phonological processing will limit the ability to sound out letters alone or within words. It also limits the ability to generalize information on a variety of oral, written, and reading tasks. • According to research, students with LD perform better with a noise free classroom (Harwell, 2008). Other student voices, movements, phones, doors opening and closing, or even a plane flying over head have proven to be huge distractions for these students. For this very reason many teachers have chosen to use sounds such as white noise, white music, or soothing instrumental music playing softly as background noise, to help block out the distracting noises for these students. This one act can actually benefit the whole class by blocking out these extra noises. Everyone in the classroom can focus better with the less distraction of noise.

13. Implications • There are some great strategies on how to help students with LD gather and retain information when they need to study. Most of these strategies would benefit the whole classroom if used in the regular classroom. Below is a list of strategies that can be used by teachers and parents: • Verbal self-mediation, this is basically talking aloud what steps you are going to take to complete a series of tasks. • Mnemonics, this is a memorizing technique used to help with learning new vocabulary by linking it to already known and understood information. • Mapping and Graphic organizers, this is a type of visual tool used my students to help organize information for note taking, homework, test taking, or researching. • Sometimes students may require some modifications or accomdations done to their assignments to help them complete assigned tasks without altering the context or meaning of the lesson or give them an unfair advantage over other students completing the same assignment. After a student has been formally assessed as having a learning disability and then given a formal Individualized Education Plan (IEP) then the team can create the appropriate accomdations for this student and then have them written into the plan.

14. Implications Some parents get nervous when they hear the term Individualized Education Plan (IEP) because they don’t understand what it is and feel scared of the unknown. It would be a great idea to be sure to inform the parents of what an IEP before the meeting. An IEP is a legally binding document that spells out exactly what special education services the student will receive and why. It will include the students’ classification, placement, services such as a one-on-one aide and therapies, academic and behavioral goals, a behavior plan if needed, percentage of time in regular education, and progress reports from teachers and therapists. The IEP is planned at an IEP meeting with the help of all parties involved in helping the student become the best they can be.

15. Implications The individualized part of IEP means that the plan has to be tailored specifically to the students’ special needs. Goals, modifications, accommodations, personnel, placement, all should be selected, enforced and maintained with the particular needs of the student in mind. Here are some examples of possible accommodations for an IEP team to consider: • Presentation: • Provide on audio tape • Provide in large print • Reduce number of items per page or line • Provide a designated reader • Present instructions orally • Response: • Allow for verbal responses • Allow for answers to be dictated to a scribe • Allow the use of a tape recorder to capture responses • Permit responses to be given via computer • Permit answers to be recorded directly into test booklet • Timing: • Allow frequent breaks • Extend allotted time for a test

16. Implications • Setting: • Provide preferential seating • Provide special lighting or acoustics • Provide a space with minimal distractions • Administer a test in small group setting • Administer a test in private room or alternative test site • Test Scheduling • Administer a test in several timed sessions or over several days • Allow subtests to be taken in a different order • Administer a test at a specific time of day • Other • Provide special test preparation • Provide on-task/focusing prompts • Provide any reasonable accommodation that a student needs that does not fit under the existing categories (LD Online, 2010) When teachers and parents can help identify that a student needs help then the process can start in helping this student. The first step may be scary for the families to start, but so much good can come from the team working together for the bettering the student with a great education with the help of a few adjustments.

17. Conclusion • There are times when even parents can miss or be in denial that perhaps their own children need help. Through my reading I came across a story of a mother who was in denial that her son had any sort of learning disability even though she was still reading all his homework to him through high school. She saw early signs starting in the first grade with his lack of reading, but she didn’t want her son to have any label put on him so she chose to ignore them and help her own son anyway she could. • As her son worked through school, the best he could, struggling his way through. His grades were horrible and he was barely passing his classes. The poor boy was getting so frustrated that he just could not “get it” like the rest of the class. He often wondered why he could not focus on tasks and why sitting at his desk was so hard for him. Without talking to his mom about his own questions, he just thought he was stupid and that school was never going to be something he understood. • It wasn’t until he reached college when a professor recommended that this student get tested. After a battery of tests the mother came in for meeting with a team from the intervention department of the college. Still in denial, the mother believed the specialists would have nothing to stand on; she knew all she needed to know about her son. But as this team presented their findings, the angrier and more in denial she got.

18. Conclusion • The findings proved that her son did in fact have ADHD, Learning Disabilities, and some sensory issues. Once the team explained the symptoms and what they could do to help, her son turned to her and said, “You mean I am not stupid?” (LD Online, 2010) This was the first time in his life that he got conformation and validity on how he was feeling. • Once the mother understood the complexity of the issues of her son and accepted the help offered to him a plan was put in place to help her son succeed. Her son got accomdations at school and at home to help him be more independent and successful with school and life. Recently her son has received his first report card at college since the accomdations have been put in place, and he has made the honor roll for the first time in his whole school career. Helping her son find out more about himself has helped him succeed in school and then in his life as well. • Then there are times when adults uncover their disabilities when they reach more in-depth education, as in studying to be a doctor. I came across an inspirational story of just this. This particular student was diagnosed with a visual-spatial learning disability, which meant that she had difficulty interpreting x-rays. Once she was indentified with this issue she was given the chance to use some accommodations to help her pass her boards and become the doctor she set out to be. She now works for a Stem Research facility using what she found out to help others.

19. Conclusion • One great way that has helped students with learning disabilities as well as all students within the classrooms is called the Universal Design Theory. This theory refers to a solution that creates an environment that is useful for all the students in the classroom. For example, let’s look at a student with a reading disability as well as visual issues. To help this particular student the teacher may order text books with larger font, to benefit just this one student. However using this theory, the teacher could make sure that all over head slides and hand outs are printed in larger print for the whole class to benefit from. • Another way to help this same student is to have some audio books made for the class. Not only will the student with a reading delay benefit, but so will also other students who are having difficulty with some words in the passage. Other ideas are stopping and frequently reviewing major points of the topic being discussed. Or the use of spell checkers and grammar checkers used when editing papers and projects for the classroom. • Universal Design Theory is there to help the whole class and even school benefit from a simple adjustment intended to help one student, but everyone can benefit from. In the book titled, Differentiating Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities, there are even ideas on how to arrange your room to gather optimum teaching and learning experience for all your students. • If all teachers and parents could learn how to create an environment using the Universal Design Theory so many more students could be reached. So many students, who are yet not even diagnosed with a disability but still struggling in some capacity, would benefit from this theory. Our goal as teachers should be to give all of our students self confidence and the resources for them to reach all the goals they ever dreamed of.

20. Additional Resources • There are some really great websites out there where you can find lots of helpful information along with some great books. I have taken the time to break them down and written a brief summary of some of the ones that I have come across to help guide you where you may like to explore. • The first website that I found is the National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2010, which can be found at http://www.ncld.org/about-us . This website is full of very useful information on just about everything related to learning disabilities. This website breaks down the basics, then ideas for home, school, work, and then what is going on in congress with regards to any laws related to learning disabilities. What I like about this site is that it is simple to get around and understand what they are trying to show you. • Another website that I came across is called LD online The World’s Leading Website on Learning Disabilities and ADHD, at http://www.ldonline.org/xarbb/topic/13398 . This website is not as user friendly as the one before but to some it may be easier. As mentioned in their title that they cover both learning disabilities as well as ADHD, so this website has information on both. They have some basic information explaining what both are along with ideas on what to do. They have some media available to view, topics for parents, teachers and students. But one of the great tabs that are included on this site is connected to a store. This store has tools that can be used to help a student with LD perform better with higher functioning in school and home.

21. Additional Resources • A book that I came across while going to school was titled The Complete Learning Disabilities Handbook is really a complete book with a lot of information for both teachers and parents who want to learn more about students with Learning Disabilities. This book contains history and definitions on Learning Disabilities (LD). It also contains ideas and examples of how to help students with LD. It also has an overview of what an Individual Education Plan (IEP) would and should look like and what the rights are of the students, parents, and teachers. This is a very comprehensive full book of everything to do with LD. • Another book that is geared to helping parents gain a better understanding of learning disabilities is called, Learning Disabilities: A to Z, A Parent’s Complete Guide to Learning Disabilities from Preschool to Adulthood. By Corinne Smith, PH. D and Lisa Strick. This is a very comprehensive book full of a lot of information. It seems a bit much when you begin reading it and you have to be committed to read it to get through it. It covers understanding what learning disabilities are, how they are identified, what appropriate education means to your child and their schooling, and finally providing a quality life for every child and adult with learning disabilities. • The final book that I feel every teacher should have on their resources shelf is titled, Differentiating Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities. This book covers a lot of the same information as the others, but is also has a section that focuses on the Universal Design theory. This theory not only helps those with learning disabilities but it can benefit the whole classroom. Not only does this book explain in depth what this theory means, but it gives examples of how to start this in your own classroom. This book has some really great materials within in. A great resource book to have on your shelf to use when needed.

22. References • Bender, William N. (2008) Differentiating Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities. Second Edition. Corwin Press. Thousand Oaks. • Harwell, J. M., Jackson, R. W. (2008) The Complete Learning Disabilities Handbook. Third edition. Jossey- Bass. San Francisco. • http://www.ldonline.org/xarbb/topic/13398 LD online, The World’s Leading Website on Learning Disabilities and ADHD, 2010 • http://www.ncld.org/ld-basics LD.org National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2010. • Smith, Corinne and Strick, Lisa.(1999) Learning Disabilities A to Z. Fireside, A Parent’s Complete Guide to Learning Disabilities from Preschool to Adulthood. New York.