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Learning Disabilities Essay

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Learning Disabilities

Eleven-year-old Anna is outgoing and bright. She attempts to work hard, but her progress in school has always been slow. She is a year behind her peers, particularly in her English class and her teachers have slowly begun to reduce their expectations of her. Her parents are worried because her confidence for learning is decreasing, and there is less motivation for her to do homework and class assignments. A psychologist found that her intelligence is in the gifted range, but she has difficulty in making out written symbols. It is easy to make the assumption that Anna seems merely as a child who is slow intellectually, but when taking a closer look, it shows that she is just as intelligent but happens to suffer …show more content…

With this mandate, came the difficulty of defining what exactly a learning disability constitutes. Learning Disabilities generally is viewed as a “category in federal legislation referring to disorders involved in understanding or using language, manifested in imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations (EBSCO, 2005, p.1).” Students with learning disabilities have average or above-average intelligence but suffer from impaired brain functions or also known as neurological handicaps. This impairment makes it difficult for them to acquire skills and knowledge accurately and fast enough to keep pace with average academic progress. Once believed to be rare, learning disabilities are now believed to affect approximately 5 percent of the population (Encarta, 2003, p.1); many experts believe the percentage to be actually higher. Learning disabilities do not refer to a single disorder, but to a wider range of problems, which can include language, memory, attention, and organization; that can affect any area of academic performance.

Causes of Learning Disorders

“…Students with learning disabilities are by far the largest and the fastest growing special needs group in the American school population” (Smith & Strick, 1997, p. 11). With this being the case, urgent

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