July 21, 2009

Learning Disabilities Revisted - Oops! Where Did They Go?

Have you noticed that nobody talks about learning disabilities anymore? The only disability receiving press is autism. Learning disabilities as a problem has always had a rough road to hoe because they are invisible- you’ve read a lot about that on this blog. Parents are still litigating dyslexia cases, but you rarely hear about them unless you read the law journals. TV stars, musicians and actors with dyslexia used to talk about it and served as role models for students with similar problems. Tom Cruise has dyslexia. But he swears that Scientology cured him (Must have been a precursor of things to come!). Remember the Fonz? Henry Winkler played him on the hit 70s television series, Happy Days. Winkler was dyslexic and passed that gene onto his daughter, Zoe. She just got married and is a nursery school teacher. When she was a little girl, she told her parents she wanted to be a teacher because “I don’t want anyone else to ever feel stupid.” (Zoe Winkler and Robert Reinis, Francesca Segre, The New York Times, 7/19/09). This year I’ve heard more misinformation about learning disabilities than I have in the last 40 years. Kids and families are suffering, teachers are confused, and the organizations that are supposed to be the public voices for this cluster of disabilities are rotting on the vine. Science has disappeared in our understanding of this problem, and we are left with fractured vocabularies and practices that are both outrageous and harmful.

Consider:

1. Approximately 1 in 59 children have learning disabilities in the United States (wrongdiagnosis.com). Media coverage about the concern over autism rates cites 1 in 150 children as having autism. Federal legislation is being enacted to help autistic children and their families with the costs of the services they need. Why is there no similar concern or help for children with learning disabilities?
2. ADD and ADHD is N O T a learning disability. Yet every website I visited in preparation for this blog lists it under the category of “learning disability”. Parents are not taught to distinguish between symptoms of ADD/ADHD and LD, many educators also getting it wrong. It is true that LD and ADD coexist together about 85% of the time, but they are different entities. IDEA puts ADD/ADHD under “other health impaired”, not under “specific learning disability”. Compare the IDEA language below:

   Other Health Impaired	Specific Learning Disability
   A disability characterized by having limited strength, vitality/alertness, including heightened alertness to the educational environment due to…attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. A medical assessment is required to document the health problem.	A disorder in one or more of the basic processes involved in understanding or using language spoken or written, that may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations…

   A child who is frustrated because of a language problem may show signs of inattention and behavioral problems, but that is only secondary to the learning disability. Thorough testing and 1-1 teacher-student involvement should be able to distinguish between the two.

3. The exclusion criteria and RTI. The federal definition of LD requires that problems, such as basic reading skills, reading comprehension, oral expression, listening comprehension, mathematical calculation, math problem solving, written expression, and reading fluency, cannot be caused by any other disability, such as emotional disturbance. It also can’t result from environmental, cultural or economic disadvantage. If a child is a poor reader, he must have been taught reading at school and been unable to learn that skill in order to be considered learning disabled. Enter RTI, response to intervention. The school has the right to try regular education options for improvement in the child’s ability before referring to special education. This 2004 reauthorization addition to IDEA has virtually destroyed the field of learning disabilities. Unless parents know better, and most don’t, schools keep kids who need help in regular education basic skills programs without doing any testing. Where are the lobbyists? Where are the headlines? Where is the same fervor we see in the parents of children with autism? Where are the LD leaders of organizations who promised to protect and speak for this enormous population of children? Friends, they have left the building.
4. The all time classic for misinformation follows (I suggest you breath deeply before continuing):

   There are 13 categories of disability covered under the IDEA. Excluding physical disabilities (affecting vision, hearing and motor function), the categories include specific learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders and emotional disturbance conditions. For now, let’s just call them all learning disabilities because regardless of their technical category, the fact remains that every one of these conditions causes problems with the learning process. (learningdisabilitiesinfo.com)

   Yes, it seems that the current attitude is to view differences in disabilities as merely “technical”. It used to be that children were denied eligibility because their test data did not support the severe discrepancy between performance and potential needed to be designated as having a specific learning disability. Parents were never told there were 12 other categories to examine. Now everything is blurred together in order to soften the blow of the seriousness of the other disabilities and what may lie ahead. In so doing, the greatest population of children, those with specific learning disabilities, are short changed in every way, their needs minimized and the science of their language disorders avoided by policy makers and educators alike.

5. The only organization who seems to be paying more than lip service to learning disabilities was founded in 2000, the National Association for the Education of African American Children with Learning Disabilities (http://www.aacld.org). They point to the over representation of black children in special education, the connection with a high drop out rate (If they’re not in school they can’t take the state test, lower school averages, or drive their teachers crazy. This problem then becomes ripe for the justice system and a future often seen through bars.) AACLD believes that by helping black children, they help all children. I agree.
6. The changing vocabulary for learning disabilities causes infinite confusion. For example, a prosperous business has been made out of the invention of the term
   ”Nonverbal Learning Disability”. There is even a national organization (http://www.nlda.org). For my money, there is no such thing, but I’m willing to be convinced. The two portions of the Wechsler IQ test have a Verbal and a Performance section. As I understand it, when the scores are low on the Performance section, this constitutes a Nonverbal disability in the eyes of believers. In my experience, it means that there is a processing and/or motor component that will affect handwriting, reading, response time (both input and output), and likely, organizational skills. We knew that by 1980. By inventing a new diagnosis, and creating private practices specializing in nonverbal learning disabilities, we get hung up in the terms and forget how they translate into individualized instruction and classroom performance.

   And while I’m on the topic of vocabulary, the word “Accommodations” will truly make me crazed (My parent training class can confirm this.) In public school, a child needs to learn the skills needed for life. That doesn’t mean making classroom accommodations so the student can be pushed through regular education classes without ever learning to improve the learning disability. It means writing quality IEPs that will not adjust the academic needs to the student, but build skills in the student that will enable him/her to work in a society that has no accommodations in the work place. Another time, we’ll talk about the term “Learning Differences”, an awful, ghastly term that means nothing and covers up what is needed in order to help the child.

7. Learning disabilities are not a form of mental illness. But school districts are often quick to look to counseling or psychotherapy so the students won’t be upset about having a learning disability. A Fact Sheet about learning disabilities from Mental Health America (http://www.nmha.org.) suggests that the family use a psychotherapist or counselor for treatment. (Not a mention about tutoring or specialized instruction…) I guess therapy is what you do when you choose not to provide appropriate special education for the student. All talk and no go!
8. Inclusion started the destruction of learning disabilities and RTI sealed the deal. Students with these disabilities are only given one placement option- general education. Sometimes there is a related service or two, but even that is usually in the regular classroom. From the beginning, inclusion was an economic move that had no connection with improving education. It is now even worse. It is the burial ground of the futures of kids with great promise who will never have the opportunity to realize their abilities.

Finally, let me tell you about Zachary. He just graduated from high school. He has dyslexia, overwhelming problems with written language, and is the oldest of four siblings, two of whom are autistic. The school refused to classify Zach, though we tried many times to get that done. The school blamed his mother’s bi-polar disorder as the reason for his problems and since I was no longer doing trials and there was no money for a lawyer, he never got the services he needed. He is bright, sensitive, talented, and handsome. He speaks haltingly, sometimes taking a long time to find the word he wants to say. He is passionate about justice and was the student representative to the board of education meetings. But school was a horror. Nobody saw how genuinely gifted Zach was because he could neither say nor write his thoughts with the beauty he showed when given time and encouragement. He was stressed by so many writing assignments and so much to read. Often he could not make himself get out of bed in the morning. To my amazement he survived, his curious and creative mind often engulfed with anger and fury over the school’s denial of his disability. He used track and working several jobs to expiate the demons he faced at school each day. Zach never learned to write an essay or research paper independently. When all of his senior papers were late, his counselor accused him of “senioritis”. He had senioritis so badly that he drove two hours one night a week for 2 months so that I could tutor him for his final English paper. In his last year of school they finally made him 504 eligible- based on an emotional disturbance with counseling. Where is the Fonz when you need him?