# Presentation: 935750

## Learning Disabilities 101

**Debbie Jones, Disabilities Specialist**
**Humanitas **
**January 23, 2006**

## Purpose

- It is essential that Job Corps staff have a foundational understanding of learning disabilities (LD) in order to appropriately serve these students.
- It is very difficult to identify effective strategies and reasonable accommodations if we do not understand the barriers that the student with a learning disability is facing.

## What is a Learning Disability?

- A LD is a ***neurobiological*** condition that affects the way individuals of average to above average intelligence _*receive*_, _*process*_, or _*express*_ information.
- A LD negatively impacts the ability to acquire basic skills of listening, speaking, thinking, reading, spelling, writing, and/or mathematics.

## Special Note

- Each individual with a LD is unique and the disability manifests itself in varying combinations and degrees of difficulty.
- Often, the individual with a LD demonstrates uneven areas of ability and may have a gap between his/her potential and actual achievement.

## What a LD is Not

- It is not:
- An attention disorder, such as Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).  AD/HD and LD may and often do occur at the same time, however.
- Mental retardation, autism, hearing or visual impairment, physical disabilities, or emotional disorder.
- Caused by lack of educational opportunities (i.e., frequent changes of schools, poor school attendance, or lack of instruction in basic skills).

## Areas of Impact

- There are four stages of information processing used in learning:
**Input** – Information is primarily brought into the brain through the eyes (visual perception) and ears (auditory perception).  We do acquire input through our other senses as well (i.e., touch, smell, taste).
**Integration** – Once we take in information, it has to be sequenced, understood (literally or abstractly), and then organized into complete thoughts or concepts.
**Memory** – Memory aids us in holding the information long enough to be used and then decides whether to store it long term or discard it.
**Output** – Finally, we communicate information by means of language output or though motor activity such as writing, drawing, gesturing, etc.

## Common Types of LD

**Common Types of LD**

**Dyslexia** - Difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge. *[Adopted by the IDA Board, November 2002 and by the National Institutes of Health, 2002].*
**Dyscalculia** - Difficulty performing calculations; Difficulty with numbers; Spatial problems; Difficulty placing numbers into vertical columns.

## Common Types of LD (continued)

**Dysgraphia** - Illegible handwriting; Difficulty writing within a defined space; Letter reversals; Letter transposition; Omission of letters or words; Poor spelling.
**Dyspraxia **- Problems with muscle control and coordination; Apparent clumsiness.
**Visual Processing (Perceptual) Disorders** - Difficulty in interpreting information taken in visually.
**Auditory Processing (Perceptual) Disorders** - Difficulty in interpreting information taken in auditorily.

## Myths about Students with LD

**Myth:** *Individuals with LD have limited potential.*
**Truth:** Individuals with LD conduct successful and fulfilling lives just as individuals without disabilities do.

## Myths about Students with LD

**Myth:** *People with LD are lazy.** *
**   ****Truth: **If an individual with a LD has experienced repeated failures, particularly educationally or socially, they often shut down and believe it hurts less to not try than it does to try and fail. The individual may feel he/she has no control over what happens to him/her which is known as learned helplessness. Small doses of success are the best antidote to learned helplessness.

## Myths about Students with LD

**Myth:*** Accommodations provided to students with LD, particularly during testing situations, gives them an unfair advantage over students without disabilities.*
**   ****Truth:** An accommodation does not tip the scales in the student's favor; it merely levels the playing field.

## Accommodation Considerations

- What accommodations has the individual received in the past?
- IEP
- 504 Plans
- Vocational Rehabilitation Documentation
- What are the student’s strengths and weaknesses, learning styles, etc.?
- Do the accommodations under consideration make use of the student’s strengths and preferred learning style(s)?

## Accommodation Considerations (continued)

- Are they sufficient to provide the student access to all areas of the program?
- If not, what additional accommodations are necessary (e.g., in vocations, residential, other common areas)?
- Do those accommodations remain relevant to the current situation?

## Slide 14

## Career Technical Selection

- Dr. Mel Levine, pediatrician and author of A Mind at a Time, says that we are all wired a little differently; that we all have differences in our brain circuitry and as a result, each person possesses unique and individual strengths and weaknesses. He states:
*"Each of us is endowed with a highly complex, inborn circuitry-creating innumerable branching pathways of options and obstacles. While some of us have brains that are wired to handle a lot of information at one time, others have brains that can absorb and process only a little information at a time (often with greater accuracy). . .*
*. . . So it is that we all live with minds wired to excel in one area and crash in another. Hopefully, we discover and engage in good matches between our kind of mind and our pursuits in life." *

## Making Career Technical Training Choices

- Students with disabilities, just like students without disabilities, have the right to choose career technical training paths of their choosing; however, there are special considerations.
- Can the student function safely in the training environment?
- Is there an obvious barrier that would prevent the student from participating in a particular type of training (e.g., student who is blind would not participate in a trade requiring driving)?
- Can reasonable accommodation alleviate the barriers to participation in a particular trade?

## Career Technical Selection Support

- If there are safety concerns, have the center physician and/or the center mental health consultant (CMHC) meet with the applicant.
- Provide career technical training counseling/ information and ample opportunities for exploration.
- Contact JAN, the center’s local Division of Vocational Rehabilitation representative, or other local resources to explore reasonable accommodation possibilities and options.

## Essential Characteristics for Success

- Strong problem solving ability
- Strong critical thinking skills
- Ability to establish goals
- Able to reframe what is not working

## Universal Design of Learning (UDL)

- Universal design is an approach to designing course instruction, materials, and content to benefit people of all learning styles without adaptation. Universal design provides equal access to learning, not simply equal access to information.
- Although this design enables the student to be self-sufficient, the teacher is responsible for imparting knowledge and facilitating the learning process.
- Universal design does not remove academic challenges; it removes barriers to access.

## UDL

- UDL does not replace an individual’s right to specific accommodation
- It creates a more inclusive environment
- It is beneficial for students with and without disabilities including ESL/ELL learners
- It provides ready access to a variety of accommodations.
- Learn more about UDL at:
- http://jccdrc.jobcorps.gov/ld

## Resources

- Job Corps LD website
- 	http://jccdrc.jobcorps.org/ld
- Job Corps Disability website
- 	http://jcdisability.jobcorps.gov/index.htm
- Job Accommodation Network
- 	http://www.jan.wvu.edu/

## Other Resources

- Barbara Grove, National Office, National Nurse Consultant
- 	202-693-3116 or grove.barbara@dol.gov
- Michelle Day, Humanitas, Disability Coordinator
- 	301-608-3290, ext. 409 or michelle.day@humanitas.com
- Debbie Jones, Humanitas, Disabilities Specialist
-     804-598-2118, or debbiemjones@comcast.net