Intelligent Otherwise: Identifying, Understanding And Tackling Learning Disabilities In Children

© Meenakshi Dave, 2009

First published 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise — without the prior permission of the author and the publisher.

ISBN 978-81-832269-7

Published by

Wisdom Tree,

4779/23, Ansari Road,

Darya Ganj, New Delhi-2

Ph.: 23247966/67/68

[email protected]

Printed in India at Print Perfect

CONTENTS

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Part I

1 Introduction

2 Characteristics and Causes

3 Assessment and Identification

4 General Guidelines for Parents and Teachers

5 Accepting Your Child as Learning Disabled

Part II

6 Disorder of Speech and Language

7 Dyslexia

8 Dysgraphia — Difficulty in Written Language

9 Attention Deficit Disorder

10 Dyscalculia — Mathematical Disabilities

11 Social and Emotional Behaviour

Part III

12 Learning Disability and Dyslexia in Indian Context

13 Conclusion

Appendix A

Appendix B

FOREWORD

Dyslexia and other learning difficulties are common problems affecting thousands of children in our society. The lack of awareness among parents and teachers about this problem further aggravates the plight of the children. It is important to recognise dyslexia as a common learning disability but more crucial is to provide proper support and guidance to the children suffering from it. A high level of motivation coupled with strong encouragement and mentorship are possible solutions leading to the academic growth of the children suffering from these problems.

The dissemination of information about learning difficulties has been one of the biggest road blocks in managing and treating this problem among children. Non-availability of any comprehensive book dealing with the subject has further escalated the problem. Thus, the first task is to make teachers and parents aware of this problem through scientific literature on the subject.

I express my gratitude to Smt Meenakshi Dave for writing a comprehensive book on dyslexia dealing with the subject in a lucid manner which is easily understandable by the reader. The book is divided in three parts where all aspects related to the subject are dealt with very cogently. This book makes a good general guide to the teachers and parents.

Smt Meenakshi Dave is an expert on dyslexia and has acquired a valuable degree on the subject from the Lab School of Washington DC, USA. Her contribution to the society in the form of this book will be viewed as a great service to humanity, especially for thousands of children who are silently suffering from dyslexia and other learning difficulties.

Sheila Dikshit

Chief Minister of NCR, Delhi

To all the learning disabled children in the world.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost I wish to express my profound gratitude to Smt Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister NCR, Delhi who in spite of her extremely busy schedule, very kindly agreed to give a Foreword to this book.

I owe a special thanks to my highly educated mother-in-law, Dr Mrs Indu Dave,who has authored several books,and who constantly inspired me to write this book.Today, she is eighty-nine-year-old and still authoring books!

I would like to thank all my friends who have been urging upon me to put my experiences in a book-form and constantly kept enquiring, When is your book coming out? Here, I would particularly like to mention the support I received from Mr Jitendra Narain, IAS who was Secretary to my husband when he was Governor in Arunachal Pradesh, and his wife, Anita, who constantly encouraged me to write.

My special thanks to Mr Shobit Arya, Ms Nandini Gupta and all their colleagues in the Wisdom Tree for meticulously going through the manuscript and giving me valuable suggestions. I am also grateful to my friend, Bela Butalia, Deputy editor at the India International Centre, for her support in identifying and introducing me to this reputed publishing house. I would not have been able to complete the book without the typing help extended to me by my husband’s colleague, Mr k.P. Bharathan, who very cheerfully put in a number of hours on the computer.

My special thanks to my two daughters, Aparna and Arti and my husband, Arvind, for their encouragement and support, without which this project would have never been completed.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank the children of Lab School of Washington D.C. where I worked for over a year. These learning disabled children, with whom I spent several hours everyday, taught me all what I have written in this book.

Part – I

Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

In a country where academic excellence seems to be the only route to recognition (cricket being an exception),the percentage/entrance/ capitation epidemic is rising in parents. Media is targeting them to market health products because the child needs to be healthy primarily to study hard and give results. Creativity, on the other hand, is merely a tool for parents to prove their social status. This depends on the number of teachers coming home to teach music, art and/or language.

With this backdrop, think of a child who is trying to read, write or add but is unable to make sense of letters or numbers. He does have the capacity to conceptualise creative ideas but is unable to express them. The IQ score is high but his handwriting is illegible and the teacher complains that he never sits still. He is unable to concentrate for a long time despite making efforts. He has changed schools several times but that too hasn’t helped!

Parents of these children are initially quite sure of their child’s intelligence but perpetual complaints from the teachers coax them into believing that their child is a dullard. They are asked to discipline the child, at times to even discipline themselves. The child is then leashed to the study table infinitely, his playtime cut short and those precious hours of frolic, or of doing nothing at all, almost totally ruled out.The child develops a poor self concept and becomes extremely sensitive, getting upset easily at little things. He does not have any friends. He often says that he cannot do things, which others can do at his age. He thinks he is a ‘bad’ child.

The end result is a disturbed child, unhappy parents and dissatisfied teachers.In most cases the child’s health,vision,hearing, etc. is normal. Neither the psychologists nor the doctors can find any reason for the poor performance. So what could possibly, be the reason for a child to have problems copying from the blackboard, or writing when the teacher dictates notes? Why can’t he write tests in spite of knowing all the answers? Why does he have a terrible time with reading? He reads slowly and often reads wrong words, e.g. carrot for court and monster for mister.He doesn’t sit still,is always moving around in the classroom, sharpening his pencil, getting a book from a friend, looking out of the window, and is restless.

This book is about children who are otherwise intelligent but have a significant and unexplained difficulty in learning. They get frustrated when, in spite of putting in hard work, they are called lazy.Their parents think they are not exerting enough.Their teachers brand them as stupid, dumb and inattentive because, in spite of working hard, they do not produce the required results. They are assessed in their report cards as being capable of doing much better but with the observation that they are not working hard enough. The truth is that they are not stupid, lazy and inattentive.They work very hard, yet do not produce the desired results.

This book introduces these special children to the world. It is about every such child who looks his age but does not learn as other children of his age do,because his nervous system has not matured as yet. In some ways this child is like a much younger child, but in other ways he is his own age. These children look absolutely normal and are neither mentally retarded nor physically handicapped.They are not even slow learners because, while the IQ level of slow learners is average or below average, the IQ level of learning disabled children is average or above average. A slow learner would be slow in all areas of development and there would be no discrepancy between IQ and learning age, whereas a learning disabled child would show a significant difference between his IQ and his reading, spelling and writing age.These children cannot absorb things the way others do. They suffer from a specific learning disability. All over the world, children have been struggling with this problem for years but this subject has not been taken seriously. It was only in the 60s that this problem came to be known as learning disability and recognised as a hidden handicap. It is called a hidden handicap because it is not visual.

Since these children look absolutely normal, parents do not realise their disability until it is too late. When they are not able to learn easily, these children or young adults are frequently seen as inactive and demotivated. Many of them have minor undetected neurological impairments, which make it impossible for them to learn in a rigid, highly structured school setting.They seem to face difficulties in sorting incoming information received by the eye and the ear, and also in expressing it. Such a child can achieve his full potential if he is taught using appropriate techniques designed to meet his learning styles and educational needs. Learning disabilities occur in all cultures, nations and language groups. It is estimated that _ to _0 per cent of school going children in USA suffer from learning disability. Researchers have found that almost 10 per cent of school going children in India also suffer the same. It is not a serious problem if parents,teachers and other professionals discover the child’s learning disability early and provide the right kind of help. Once the child knows his ability, and is given an opportunity and environment to develop his skills, he can lead a successful and productive life. A recent National Institutes of Health (NIH) study showed that 67 per cent of young children who face difficulty in reading become average or above average students after receiving help in early grades.

In fact, some of the world’s most distinguished people had this unusual type of difficulty in certain aspects of learning. A few of them have been listed:

Albert Einstein, the mathematical genius, did not speak till he was three years old. His language disabilities persisted throughout his adult life. His spellings were very poor since writing was very difficult for him.

Nelson Rockefeller, who served as Vice President of USA, suffered from severe dyslexia, which is an extreme difficulty in learning to read. His poor reading ability kept him from achieving good grades in school.

As a child, Thomas Edison was called abnormally addled and mentally defective. His father considered him stupid because he was never able to get good grades in school.

WoodrowWilson,the twentieth President of USA,did not learn his letters until he was nine-year-old and did not learn to read until eleven.

The learning difficulties of these historic figures is derived from biographical information.These people were somehow able to find appropriate ways of learning and successfully overcame their initial failures. But many youngsters with such disability are not so fortunate.

Defining Learning Disability

S. A. Kirk first introduced the term learning disability in 196_. There are many definitions to this, but the most widely used one is recognised by the Federal Public Law 101 – _76 under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA (1990). This definition of learning disabled children, which first became effective in 197_, became the basis for