Blog 17 Exceptional Development by Cathy Morgan

First I must say that I totally agree with the text on pg. 75 when it states that we need to remember to take into count the child first and the special needs second. I have heard and seen so many people label a child and then always refer to the label and not the child by name. As a few of you have already stated part of provided a good clarification of what a learning disability is NOT, I will add to that, not due to poor teaching, lack of intelligence, or to temporary causes.
I have experienced most children with a specific learning disability to be very smart and can learn in the right setting. The IDEA has their definition of a specific learning disability on pg. 76 in the text. This chapter talks about the difference between learning disabilities and special needs children. This subject is very dear to me as I write this I remember the hard time I had when my own son Christopher was in school in the late 80 early 90’s. Christopher is bipolar, ADHD and does not read well due to a premature birth, we did not know that Christopher could not hear until he was three, I took him to the doctor a lot from birth to three, when a doctor finally sent him to an ENT specialist. Later in school when he was in a class room where the teacher would read over the assignments to the whole class and then help Christopher by writing his answers he got A’s and B’s. In the classrooms where he had to do all the reading with no peer or teacher help he failed. As stated in the text on pg. 77 it is not that a child is not “intelligence , but fail in class because of inappropriate instruction, culture, or linguistic differences and the requirement to wait until the gap is wide enough to detect ( wait-to-fail-approach)”. Now all children with ADHD are overly active, some are very quite and are over looked because they are not disruptive to the classroom. I agree with the table on pg 82, however I also believe that if each school have one or two classrooms where the teaching style was all visual, and/or audio, and hands on activities more of these student would learn how to adjust for their individual learning disability, becoming better citizens in society. I can tell you that everything on pg. 85 is so true when it comes to children with ADHD in the schools. I have been to many schools many times for all of these “problems”. Christopher got through grades k – 7th by being the class clown, and after that he just quite, Christopher went to a community college to finish his high school diploma and he did it on his own. I am very proud of his, but now later in life he continues to have trouble getting by in society. A agree with the text about many children with ADHD do not outgrow their symptom and that “ Most important, it emphasizes the role of teacher, psychologists, counselors and other caring adults in the lives of these children. Supportive teachers and mentors at school can play an enabling role in children’s lives and help reduce the negative effects of childhood disabilities and disorders.”
Am a teacher and I work with infants and preschool children because, I did not know enough when I could have helped my own son. Now I am educated about learning disabilities and know what to look for so I can help other families.