New hope for learning disabled

If he were at school today, Richard would have been diagnosed as suffering for ‘dyslexia’ – the name given to the frustrating reading and writing disorder that can affect children and adults alike. But Richard would not be interested in going back to school today. He’s far too busy managing one of the most successful companies in the world with airlines, record stores and radio stations amongst its many subsidiaries. Yes, the boy in our story is none other than Richard Branson, entrepreneur and founder of giant multinational, Virgin.

Branson is not the only success story to swim against the tide of academic stigmatisation. Among the notable people from history who were also purported to have the disorder are Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, Leanardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein – names synonymous with super-intelligence. All found ways to circumnavigate a problem their teachers said would always keep them at the bottom of the pile.

In Thailand, the attitude towards students diagnosed with dyslexia and other learning disorders has been, in the main, fairly systematic with special schools being set up to cater for such children. But some argue that taking children out of the mainstream can compound their problems even further, particularly in terms of self-esteem and social interaction with their peers.

Recently, things have started to change. Thai educators all over the country are beginning to take an active interest in understanding the nature of various learning disorders, so that they can better serve their students. There is also a push towards placing children with learning disorders back in to mainstream education so that they can benefit socially as well as academically.

Ever since the 1960’s, the United States has been a world leader in promoting the understanding of learning disorders. The term widely used in the US is ‘learning disability’, or ‘LD’ for short, which federal government defines as a “disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in the understanding or in using spoken or written language. The disorder may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculation.”

It is important to understand that learning disabilities are quite distinct from mental retardation. Children and adults with learning disablilities are often just as intelligent, if not more so, than their peers. The difference comes in the way an LD sufferer’s brain processes certain information.

Peggy Swerdlik

To help shed some light on the topic, learning post spoke to Peggy Swerdlik who teaches in the Department of Special Education at Illinois State University. We caught up with her in Bangkok recently where she was giving a presentation to Thai educators on the nature of LD.

“Children with genuine learning disabilities have genuine learning
problems and should not be considered ‘lazy’ or lacking discipline or
self-control,” she told us. “Not all students with behaviour problems have learning disabilities but a learning disability can result in a behaviour problem if
students are working in a curriculum that is too difficult for them. For example, they are in the fourth grade and are reading at a second grade level.”

Frustrations can be eased, explains Swerdlik, with interventions that are age-appropriate. These can range from one-to-one support right through to the class teacher preparing special materials that are geared to suit individual learning needs.

In her presentation, Swerdlik spoke about the different types of learning disabilities, most of which can be broken down into five distinct categories – auditory, visual, perceptual, organisational and memory.

If a student experiences an auditory processing disorder, the likelihood is that he or she will hear a teacher’s question clearly enough but will have trouble interpreting it into something meaningful. Early signs that a child suffers from this disorder can become apparent as they struggle to learn to read aloud, since auditory processing problems are often related to this activity.

Visual processing difficulties affect the student’s ability to interpret what they see. For example, the student is able to see the letters on a page but struggles with discriminating letters and/or words. The student may also have trouble remembering the sequence of letters to make up words or the sequence of words to make up sentences.

Students who have perceptual motor difficulties will have trouble transforming information they receive through the senses (usually from what they hear or see) into motor movements such as writing notes or drawing pictures. For example, such a student may have difficulty copying down a word that they hear or replicating a visual artistic image on paper.

We all have trouble organising ourselves from time to time but some students have enormous difficulty manipulating information in a systematic way. This can affect their development of effective learning strategies, resulting in a haphazard and disorganised approach to study.

Finally, those with memory difficulties will find that deficiencies in either the short or long-term memory can hinder their performance, particularly in exams or test where knowledge retrieval is necessary.

Signs that a child has a learning disorder normally appear as they begin to grasp the basic concepts of reading, writing and arithmetic. Signals to watch out for can range from trouble with understanding and following directions to a short attention span or difficulty with memorising basic facts. Others you should be able to spot are poor reading skills, bad handwriting or difficulties organising work.

Of course, most if not all of these problems can occur without being directly related to a learning disability. That’s why children are always tested thoroughly before entering into any kind of programme, whether that be in-class support or attending special classes.

The encouraging thing for parents and children alike is that many different disorder-specific strategies have been created to help. These strategies do not necessarily ‘cure’ the disorder but they allow students to work around it in order to achieve at a similar level to students with normal learning abilities.

“They [students with learning disabilities] can respond to interventions and can learn,” says Dr Swerdlik. “Interventions can be implemented for the whole class so that all children, including those with learning disabilities, can benefit.”

This can only be achieved, notes Swerdlik, if administrators support teachers by providing assistance from a variety of support personnel. “If there are no support personnel,” she adds, “then parents, older students, grandparents can be utilised to provide the needed repetition, practice, and feedback that can benefit students with learning disabilities. Administrators need to also support a problem solving approach where teachers work collaboratively to identify interventions to help children with learning disabilities or any other child who is at risk of failure.”

Until relatively recently, children with learning disorders in Thailand have had only two options. One is to be taught at a special school, which often involves moving away from home and being isolated from their own community. Such children often benefit from the special tuition they receive, but they may suffer social problems as a result of being taken out of the mainstream.

The other option is to stay within the mainstream. Currently, there are a small number of national schools that offer an integrated special education component with specialist staff on hand to provide support. However, such schools are few and far between and most are based in Bangkok. This means, of course, that many children throughout the country are not getting the proper specialist education they are entitled to as outlined in the recent Education Reform Act. This is not necessarily the fault of individual schools. The conditions needed for providing specialist programmes are often an obstacle for schools with limited funds and class sizes in the high fifties.

Dr Kullaya Kosuwan

Dr Kullaya Kosuwan, a professor of special education, specialising in mental retardation, autism and ADHD, at Srinakharinwirot University, has been pushing to raise awareness of learning disabilities in Thailand for some time.

“Between five to ten percent of students in Thailand have some form of learning disability,” points out Dr Kullaya. “This term [‘learning disability’] has been known in Thailand less than five years. Before that, these students were called ‘naughty’ or ‘lacking attention or academic skill’. So lots of them dropped out of school because they couldn’t cope with the academic requirements.”

The special education faculty at Srinakarinvorj has been very proactive in sending out information to schools and arranging in-service training for teachers around the country. They are also keen to promote a sense of inclusion for learning disabled students.

“We believe that LD students should be taught in general education classrooms because they have normal intelligence or even higher in some cases,” explains Dr Kullaya. “It’s just that their academic performance is lower than average. So, for example, they may be in the third grade but their level of achievement is in the first grade.

“The main problem is that we don’t have enough qualified teachers in this area. If we had special education teachers to help regular teachers then that would be great. At least schools should have someone to provide consultation for other teachers. Every school should have at least one or two.”

The hope is that new initiatives will provide a better deal for children with learning disabilities. Certainly, the process is moving in the right direction. Once it gathers enough momentum and is available in all schools, the benefits for the country would be clear. If more students who would likely have dropped out of school are given a decent chance at an education, then that can only be a good thing.

We will be running more stories on learning disabilities in future editions of ‘learning post’. If you know of a school that has a particularly impressive LD programme, let us know by writing to us at the addresses given in the ‘Contact Us’ section below.

Most common learning disorders

Learning disorders occur when a person’s ability to store, process or retrieve information is impaired. A learning disorder is not a disease and therefore cannot be ‘cured’. It need not, however, be a major obstacle for achieving academic or social goals – with appropriate learning structures as well as academic and parental support, students with any of the disorders below can succeed in school and later on in life as an adult.

Dyslexia – this is by far the most common learning disorder and affects a person’s ability to accurately or fluently recognise words. Common problems associated with dyslexia include poor spelling, reading and writing skills. Interestingly, it has been found that many people with dyslexia have extraordinary talents in other areas such as art or sport.

www.interdys.org - International Dyslexia Association

Dyscalculia – causes difficulty in doing simple arithmetic and recognising mathematical shapes and symbols. People with dyscalculia often have trouble organising finances or may have difficulty grasping abstract mathematical concepts such as time or musical rhythm.

www.dyscalculia.org - facts and information related to Dyscalculia

Dysgraphia – this is a specific disorder that affects handwriting. Someone with dysgraphia will have difficulty with the spacing and sizing of letters, sometimes writing words incorrectly. There are techniques designed to improve motor ability, although their success can be limited.

www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/disorders/dysgraphia.htm - information on Dyscgraphia

Children with ADHD cannot stay focused on a task, cannot sit still, often act without thinking, and rarely finish anything. Whilst all of these traits are found in most children at some point, ADHD sufferers will show them acutely and consistently. Behavioural therapies and medical drugs such as Ritalin have been shown to improve the condition, which usually disappears by the time a child has reached adulthood. Diagnosis should be confirmed before treatment.

www.chadd.org - Children and Adults with ADHD