Curing Our "Epidemic" of Learning Disabilities.

If educators wish to help children who are low achievers, they must discard the concept of learning disabilities entirely, in favor of a new way of thinking about children's learning problems, Ms. Spear-Swerling and Mr. Sternberg maintain. At a recent party, where most of those present were the parents of school-age children, one of us overheard the following exchange. One parent, discussing her daughter's difficulties in learning to read, mentioned to another parent that the child was suspected by school personnel of having learning disabilities. "My son's teacher thinks that he has learning disabilities, too," confided the second parent. "Both of my children have already been diagnosed as learning-disabled," interjected a third parent, who was nearby. It seems that a veritable plague of learning disabilities has descended on some of our schools. In the past 20 years or so, the number of children diagnosed as learning disabled has steadily increased, and children with learning disabilities (LDs) now form the single largest category of students receiving special education services. (1) Is there really an epidemic of learning disabilities, perhaps caused by some hidden toxin in our air, food, or water? Or instead is it that - as more than one parent has suggested to us - the concept of learning disabilities merely serves to excuse the failure of schools and teachers to do an adequate job of teaching all children? In our opinion, neither scenario is accurate. True, some children have actual disabilities in learning, and some teachers do a poor job of teaching. However, the fundamental problem is the concept of learning disabilities itself, and the way it has distorted our view of children's difficulties in learning. Furthermore, the flaws in the learning-disabilities concept cannot be repaired through minor tinkering. If educators wish to help children who are low achievers, they must discard the concept of learning disabilities entirely, in favor of a new way of thinking about children's learning problems. What exactly is the concept of learning disabilities? The centerpiece of educational definitions of learning disabilities and the characteristic that is usually emphasized in school identification of children with LDs is an ability/achievement discrepancy - typically operationalized as an I.Q. /achievement discrepancy. (2) Children with learning disabilities are seen as having low achievement relative to the achievement that would be expected based on their I.Q. scores. In addition, learning disabilities are assumed to be the result of a disorder intrinsic to the child, such as a central nervous system dysfunction. (3) Children whose learning difficulties are caused primarily by environmental disadvantage or by poor teaching - as well as by other so-called exclusionary conditions such as sensory impairment or emotional disturbance - are not supposed to be identified as having learning disabilities. Finally, learning disabilities are thought to involve a unique or distinctive syndrome, one qualitatively different from other kinds of learning problems. For example, learning disabilities involving reading, the kind most often identified,(4) are assumed to involve a distinctive syndrome of poor reading that is different from "ordinary" poor reading. However, it turns out that all these aspects of the learning-disabilities concept are problematic - none more so than the notion of an I.Q. /achievement discrepancy. Both educationally and psychologically, the discrepancy construct fails to work. Educationally, one might reasonably assume that the separate classification and treatment of children under the learning-disabilities umbrella is based on these children's need for a distinctive kind of educational program. Yet there is little evidence to support this assumption. For example, children with learning disabilities in reading unquestionably need instructional help - but they do not appear to need a qualitatively different kind of remedial program than do other poor readers, such as those without I. …