The Changing Face of Learning Disabilities
Janet W. Lerner, Ph.D.
Co-Editor. Learning Disabilities: A Multidisciplinary Journal
Precipitous changes are occurring throughout our world, and the field of learning disabilities has not escaped its own modifications and changes. In the popular book, “The Tipping Point”, the author Malcolm Gladwell makes the point that an idea can grow beyond its initial impact. Sometimes good ideas have to be seen in a different way to expand their influence.
The problem of defining, identifying, and understanding learning disabilities has become much more complex and complicated. When the field of learning disabilities first began at the historic meeting in 1963, the concept of “specific learning disabilities” was quite clear -- learning disabilities were viewed as significant problems in a specific area of academic learning, such as reading or math, for children who were otherwise intact. Children with other types of difficulties in the social, emotional, or neurological realm were not included within the definition of learning disabilities.
Today, after over 40 years of experience, our concept of learning disabilities is undergoing dramatic change. Learning disabilities are seen as much more complex and involved than originally envisioned. Today, many students who receive learning disabilities services have concurrent, co-occurring, co-morbid, and other related disorders. Problems such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, nonverbal learning disabilities, Asperger Syndrome, learning disabilities affecting gifted and talented children, depression, sensory-integration disorders, bipolar disorders, and other neurodevelopmental syndromes are often evident. It seems that we have reached a “tipping point” in the viewing of learning disabilities.
Parents, educators, and other professionals should become aware of these broadening views of learning disabilities and what they imply for the children we serve.
Janet W. Lerner, Ph.D.
Co-Editor. Learning Disabilities: A Multidisciplinary Journal. |
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