Dr. Renu
Malaviya,
Associate Prof,
Deptt. Of Education,Lady Irwin College (University
of Delhi)
The evolution of definitions of LD
can be traced to the turn of the last century and is closely linked concepts of
organically based behavioural disorders.
The concept of LD arose from observations of children who were
hyperactive and impulsive; it was often presumed that the cause of these
unexpected behaviour disorders was constitutional in origin. Thus, these
children were described with terms such as organic driveness syndrome, minimal
brain injury, (Doris, 1993; Rutter,
1982; Satz & Fletcher, 1980)
Way
back in the 18th and the 19th century, children with
learning disabilities were often diagnosed and considered to have “minimal
brain dysfunction”. Further testing would indicate that the children tended to
show some neurological difficulties. Yet these neurological difficulties seem
to vary from child to child and in unpredictable ways. The experts of that era
realized that there appeared to be no predictable structure to these
neurological difficulties. Attempts at correlations with reference to the size
of the brain, pattern of blood flow to the brain, nerve impulse to the brain
and so on were studied. Yet no consistent structures were indentified.
Sometimes the diagnosis would indicate, perceptual deficits’. Yet attempts to
improve on the eye-hand coordination or on the visual scanning skills would not
work. All this did leave the scientific world a little perplexed.
Terms
such as “ minimum brain dysfunction”, “ stephosymbolia” ( reversal of letters),
hyperactive
and impulsive, organic driveness syndrome
and so on were extensively being used for these children. (Doris, 1993; Rutter, 1982; Satz
& Fletcher, 1980)
In
1963 Samual Kirk at Chicago coined the term “learning disability”. (1962, cited
in Streissguth, Bookstein, Sampson, & Barr, 1993, p.144). He urged the
scientific community to throw away the other previously used terminologies. The
term learning disability had its advantages:
·
It was a term which parents and
teachers could understand
·
It moved the concepts out of the
realm of only neurology and medicine towards the field of education.
·
Now the focus could be more towards
the issues related to information and language processing.
·
The educators begin to work upon
finding special education techniques.
According to Samuel Kirk, (1962):
‘A
learning disability refers to a retardation, disorder, or delayed development
in one or more of the processes of speech, language, reading, spelling,
writing, or arithmetic resulting from a possible cerebral dysfunction and/or
emotional or behavioral disturbance and not from mental retardation, sensory
deprivation, or cultural or instruction factors.’
[Kirk, S.
A. (1962). Educating exceptional children. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. (p. 261).]
As the term gained rapid acceptance, it facilitated
another important move. The
establishment of the term LD ( Learning Disability) as a special
education category, enabled children with LD to be included in being provided
special services related to education
and beyond. As of earlier they were
excluded from the special services as their learning characteristics did not
correspond to existing categories. This
in itself was a major step in the perspectives related to this disability.
In 1963, Samuel Kirk
addressed a gathering of anxious parents in Chicago, (Streissguth, Bookstein,
Sampson, & Barr, 1993) at which for the first time used publicly the term
learning disabilities to describe the children. He stated at the gathering
Dyslexics are a specific group of children,
adolescents and adults who have problems in learning. These problems are
generally in the area of reading, writing, spellings and mathematics. A
learning disability is found across all ages and in all socio-economic classes.
It is not a-typical of mental retardation as is mistaken by many people; in
fact the IQ scores of these children can be very high.
At the end of 1950’s
and early 1960’s the need to focus on, ‘Education for
all” started to emerge in Great Britain and the United States of America in the
1960s. At that time the difficulty that children were facing with learning in
the school system began to attract the attention of educationist and
psychologist seriously. As the momentum of getting each and every child into
school increased, the number of ‘intelligent’ and “able bodied” children, who
were unable to cope with learning in school especially with reading, writing
and mathematics also increased. These children were otherwise bright, fairly
articulate and had no sensory or visual handicap.
As
“Education for All” gained momentum in Great Britain, experience as well as effective school
teachers and principals observed that their were children who otherwise
appeared bright, were articulate and generally appeared to be learning, yet
when it came to examinations they would repeatedly not do well. They would not
be able to read well and it may be remembered that at that point of time getting
the children to read aloud in class was a major way of teaching . There are
documentations of school principals of that era who have indicated their
concern about these children who according to them were defiantly intelligent
but yet were failing repeatedly. Hence came in the term “dyslexia” (Dys means
difficulty and lexia means words). Gradually as each and every child was
now in the school system in Great Britain, there came in a realization that
there were another set of children who even if they were okay with the age
standard norm for reading, just could not write well. No amount of training
helped them become really better. The new term that came into existence was
dysgraphia (Dys means difficulty and graphia
indicating writing) and further as the
school system improved and more resources were pumped into the school system
another set of children were identified who came to be known as dyscalculia (Dys
means difficulty and calculia indicating arithmetic).
Now the
first term was dyslexia, and hence just as a petname/family name that many of us have, dyslexia in the mass
memory continued to used as the umbrella term for dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia,
aphasia and so on.
Now
around this time there was a lot of migration from Great Britain to the new
land called USA. The psychologist, educationist who migrated there for greener
pastors took with them the knowledge. They also took with the knowledge related
to the term MR (mental retardation). Therein the term MR was being reconsidered
as the terminology retardation was being now considered belittling. Therein the
term MR was being replaced with LD (learning disabilities).
Now as
the awareness increased in South Asia, it lead to certain amount of confusion. There was a
intermixing of the terminologies Mental Retardation (MR), Learning Disabilities
(LD) and Learning Difficulties (LD). Hence came in the confusion that a MR is
also LD or vice a versa. It needs a bit of minute observation as to why this
happened and continues to happen. The abbreviation LD stands for both learning disabilities
(LD) and learning difficulty (LD).
When we
say learning difficulty it implies that there is a difficulty in learning which
can be removed or which may not be possible to remove. For example if I am new
to learning a language say French, I will have learning difficulty (LD) and NOT
learning disability (LD). If my teacher does not know how to teach well than I
will face learning difficulty (LD) and NOT learning disability (LD).
So a
child with Mental retardation ( Intellectual disability) will have a learning
disability and so will a child with dyslexia have a learning disability.
Oh! Can
you now observe that type of confusion that the terminologies have created? Is
dyslexia only dyslexia or is dyslexia also dygraphia, dyscalculia , aphaisa and
others???? Hence as of now in South Asia the umbrella term used for
‘disability’ in reading, writing, arithmetic etc is Specific Learning
Disability (SLD).
The confusion has not ended as yet. I
can almost hear many of you saying SLD is NOT a disability and so even ASD is
NOT a disability. Well! Well ! I completely agree with you, these are the off
shoots of diversities in the brain structures. In my next article I will deal
with the brain diversities and whether it is learning difficulties (LD),
learning disabilities (LD) or Learning diversities (LD).
Before if
I sign off, I would also want to touch on the term “Slow Learner” . This it as
of now a sub-classification of Intellectual Disability or is it any one who is
learning slowing. If it is anyone who is learning slowing than could it be the
cause of faculty teaching, limitations of the child’s physical-socio-economic-
cultural environment??? If yes than who is the “slow”, the child or the teacher
or the parent?????
Slow learner
Learning disability
Learning difficulty
Learning deviance
Sp learning disability
MR
ASDD
