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Role of the school in serving children with learning disabilities.

The term "learning disabilities" means different things to different people. Within the educational context, this term is generally interpreted to mean "specific" LDs, as defined in federal legislation mandating school districts to provide services to children with handicaps. The preceding remarks have described the major legal responsibilities of schools with regard to children with handicaps. These responsibilities include identifying and locating children who are suspected of being handicapped, providing a comprehensive evaluation of their needs, planning an individual program for the student cooperatively with the parent or parents, educating children in an environment that is the least restrictive, and providing parents with due process throughout these activities. It is recognized that neurologists count among their patients numerous children whom they have identified clinically as "learning disabled," yet who do not qualify for special education under the "specific" LDs definition employed by the school. This article provides both moral and pragmatic reasons for school districts to develop appropriate means of responding to the needs of such pupils, and examples of accommodations that may be implemented at various levels of the school's organizational structure. Finally, it suggests that by developing effective linkages between their systems, medical and educational personnel can facilitate treatment for children who are having difficulty in learning.

Child

Evoked potential maps in learning disabled children.

Some childhood learning disabilities are associated with altered synchrony patterns of brain evoked potentials. Scalp recorded electrical synchrony between selected brain regions was measured in response to visual, auditory and somatosensory stimuli and compared between a group of learning disabled children and a group of normal children. Statistically significant inter-group differences revealed stimulus dependent greater inter-regional EP synchrony in the learning disabled group. These findings support the notion that some childhood learning disabilities reflect, in part, altered connections between selected brain regions.

Brain Mapping

Learning disabilities: an overview.

Children with learning disabilities form a large pool of patients seen by neurologists for help in understanding the disability and deciding which forms of remediation are appropriate. Learning disabilities may accompany a large variety of other neurologic disabilities, but the usual child with such a problem is in excellent health. A thorough office evaluation for possible medical problems is always necessary, but most children do not require laboratory testing. All children with learning disabilities, whether or not they have accompanying neurologic problems, should be seen for psychological and/or educational evaluation. Some children may also benefit from an evaluation by a speech and language pathologist, occupational therapist, or ophthalmologist. The neurologist, alone or in association with a child psychologist, should also investigate the possible association of learning disabilities with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It is only for children with this component of learning problems that the possibility of medication arises. Working closely with the family, the child's school system, and other involved professionals becomes an important aspect of providing full and necessary help to children with learning disabilities. A caring physician can be a major help to the child and his family in understanding this disorder and supporting them during a difficult time.

Brain

Learning to solve a problem: a microanalysis of the solution strategies of children with learning disabilities.

Ten subjects with learning disabilities and 10 normally achieving subjects, aged 10-5 to 12-5 years, were videotaped while attempting to solve the Tower of Hanoi problem (see Karat, 1982; Piaget, 1976; Simon, 1975). A microanalysis of their problem-solving activities provided a descriptive taxonomy used to analyze what, in fact, individual subjects did when constructing a solution strategy, and to categorize and compare changes in strategy. The results indicated that as a group the normally achieving subjects reached more sophisticated levels of strategy use (p less than .05). However, if the focus of the comparison is on an analysis of how learning proceeded in individuals, then the subjects with learning disabilities appear to be similar to the normally achieving subjects. There was no evidence in these subjects of the popular conception that individuals with learning disabilities are inactive, passive, or maladaptive in their attempts to learn to solve a problem.

Attention

Mastery of verb tense markers by normal and learning-disabled children.

Sixty learning-disabled children with a mean age of 7-11 and 60 children in regular classes with a mean age of 7-10 were given a tense marker test to elicit future, present, and past tense markers for 50 verbs organized into 10 categories based on the operation required to form the past tense. Results indicated that both normal and learning-disabled children had achieved control of future, present, and /-d/ and /-t/ past tense markers. Neither group has mastered the /-ed/ nor seven categories of irregular past tense markers. Children in regular classes showed significantly higher correct responses across 10 categories of past tense items. Analysis of error patterns indicated that learning disabled children used a different pattern of responses and a different set of rules to mark past tense. This study shows the need for data on the linguistic status of normally developing children above the age of seven, if we are to make any inferences about the performance of children whose development is deviate.

Child

The effect of concurrent manual activity on the dichotic listening performance of boys with learning disabilities.

Three groups of learning-disabled children, defined according to their Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) profiles, and one normal control group, were given both a standard dichotic listening task and a dichotic listening task performed concurrently with a manual tapping task. Learning-disabled children who showed no disparity in their verbal and performance subscale scores on the WISC demonstrated a right ear preference under standard testing and when tapping with the left hand, but not the right, which was nearly the same pattern as that obtained by the control group. Learning-disabled children whose verbal WISC score was at least 15 point lower than their performance demonstrated a right-ear preference only when tapping with their left hand. Finally, learning-disabled children who had high verbal, low performance WISC profiles showed no ear preference under any conditions. These results were interpreted as indicating that these three types of learning-disabled children are differentially lateralized and differentially affected by the facilitory-inhibitory effects of concurrent hemispheric activities.

Adolescent

The effects of direct feedback and practice on metaphor performance in children with learning disabilities.

Children with learning disabilities may have a problem in interpreting metaphor and need specific guidance and practice. This study found that direct feedback and practice could significantly increase metaphor performance of these children. Further descriptive analyses indicated that grade and reading levels of the subjects correlated with their metaphor performance.

Adolescent

Pointing to the way ahead. Health education for people with learning disabilities.

People with learning disabilities have a right to health education, and nurses working with them have ample opportunities to fulfil this role. Health education must cater for individual clients' needs, and be presented in a style and language they can easily understand. Effective communication partly depends on being able to emphasize with clients; it is important to appreciate that clients are responsible for their actions.

Humans

Word identification performance in the presence of competing speech and noise in learning disabled adults.

Eight learning disabled (LD) adults and eight control subjects identified monosyllabic words presented simultaneously in the presence of speech spectrum noise and three types of linguistic maskers. The performance of LD subjects was poorer than that of the control subjects under each masking condition. Word identification was poorest in the presence of speech noise for both groups. No difference in performance was seen as a function of the linguistic content of the competing speech maskers. These results suggest that LD subjects present greater susceptibility to acoustic masking relative to control subjects and may support the view that auditory-language deficits observed in LD individuals may be secondary to an underlying acoustic-phonetic disorder rather than a central phonologic disorder. LD college students may experience S/N ratios in the classroom that perpetuate or exacerbate their listening problems.

Adolescent

Learning disabilities and vocational rehabilitation.

Students with learning disabilities have received services in special education programs for many years. Unfortunately, many of these students continue to need services after they exit high schools. Vocational rehabilitation has begun to provide services for young adults with learning disabilities; however, there continues to be a discrepancy between the number of adults with learning disabilities who need vocational rehabilitation services and those who are receiving them. This article describes the definitions and eligibility criteria used by vocational rehabilitation agencies to serve adults with learning disabilities. By understanding the vocational rehabilitation system, teachers, it is hoped, will be better able to access these services for their students with learning disabilities.

Adolescent

Psychological and family problems associated with learning disabilities: assessment and intervention.

Learning disabilities not only interfere with academic tasks; they interfere also with all stages of psychosocial development as well as with peer and family interactions. It is not uncommon, therefore, for children and adolescents with learning disabilities to have psychological, peer, and family problems. These secondary difficulties must be recognized, correctly diagnosed, and treated.

Adaptation, Psychological

Postsecondary education for students with learning disabilities.

Increasingly, students with learning disabilities are attending community colleges and traditional 4-year colleges and universities. This article presents the results of a review of the literature on services available or recommended for students with learning disabilities. The results suggest that postsecondary institutions have begun to provide a wide array of services to these students. There is little empirical evidence, however, on the effectiveness of those services. An agenda for future research is also discussed.

Counseling

Nursing students with learning disabilities: guidelines for fostering success.

Learning disabilities can be devastating for the nursing student, interfering with academic performance and with success on the NCLEX-RN. Within the past five to ten years, college educators are seeing an increasing number of students with learning disabilities diagnosed in the 1970s, who are now ready for higher education. This phenomenon is becoming apparent as well in schools of nursing in the United States. This article describes the problem, gives characteristics by which the student with a learning disability can be identified, and suggests methods for assisting the student to achieve success in school and on the national licensing examination following graduation.

Humans

Auditory, visual, and multisensory nonverbal social perception in adolescents with and without learning disabilities.

Adolescents with and without learning disabilities (14, 16, and 18 years old) were tested to determine whether they differed in auditory, visual, and/or multisensory (combined auditory/visual) social perception abilities. Differences between the two groups in growth of auditory, visual, and multisensory social-perception abilities were also measured. Results of the data analyses revealed that adolescents with learning disabilities were not as adept at understanding nonverbal social information regardless of whether the information was visual or multisensory in nature. Further, nonverbal social-perception ability for both visual and multisensory information improved with increasing age for both populations. Finally, adolescents with learning disabilities continued to demonstrate comparatively poorer social-perception abilities through the 18-year level.

Adolescent

The relationship between learning disability, emotional disorders, and neuropsychology; some results and observations.

Emotional disorders may precede learning disabilities, follow learning disabilities, or occur at the same time. This paper discusses evidence supporting each of these hypotheses, focussing on the possibility that both learning disabilities and emotional disorders, or at least some subforms of them, may have a common origin in neurological dysfunction. A model of interaction of the many factors involved in both the development and the persistence across age for both learning disabilities and emotional disorders is presented and avenues of research are discussed. Data from a 15-year follow-up study which illustrate some of these complex relationships are presented.

Adaptation, Psychological

A childhood learning disability that predisposes those afflicted to adolescent and adult depression and suicide risk.

A particular subtype of learning disability (nonverbal learning disability) is described. This subtype of individuals with learning disability is seen to be at particular risk for depression and suicide. The origins of the study of this subtype of learning disability, its incidence in various forms of neurological disease, disorder, and dysfunction, and its behavioral and socioemotional manifestations (including its association with significant internalized forms of psychopathology) are described. A case history of a young woman who manifests this disability and who has attempted suicide on three occasions is also presented.

Adjustment Disorders