What is Learning Disability?
Learning Disability Association of Canada website states: "Learning disabilities have been recognized as a medical problem for a long time. As early as 1891, medical researchers noted the association between neurological mechanisms and learning disabilities, such as dyslexia." This website defines Learning disability as "Learning Disabilities" refer to a number of disorders which may affect the acquisition, organization, retention, understanding or use of verbal or nonverbal information. Learning disabilities range in severity and may interfere with the acquisition and use of one or more of the following: * oral language (e.g. listening, speaking, understanding); * reading (e.g. decoding, phonetic knowledge, word recognition, comprehension); * written language (e.g. spelling and written expression); and * mathematics (e.g. computation, problem-solving). “Learning Disabilities affect 1 in 10 Canadians. In B.C. alone over 18,000 children and youth are diagnosed with dyslexia, dysnomia, dysgraphia and other learning challenges. This does not include the countless children on wait lists for diagnosis or those who quietly struggle with learning challenges.” (excerpt from http://www.ldav.ca/parent-resources) My Experience: Today's classroom has at least one student with a learning disability and I am not an exception. My favourite interventions to help them out are direct instruction and strategy instruction. I also use scaffolding in core subjects; starting out with my mediated explicit instruction, then slowly begin to let the students acquire the skill, moving towards the goal of student mediated instruction. |
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