Encouraging Preservice Recognition of G/LD Students (2002)

Abstract The student who is and has a learning disability (GILD) presents unique characteristics of high intellectual functioning and serious learning difficulties. Helping preservice special education teachers to recognize these learners and providing strategies through which they can meet their needs may enable them to understand that all with learning disabilities must have opportunities to be engaged with appropriately challenging content and to learn to use higher level thinking skills. The author suggests that the GILD student makes an excellent example for helping preservice teachers to better understand with learning disabilities and presents strategies for meeting the academic needs of G/LD and other learners. ********** In recent years, researchers and educators in the field of education have become much more aware of with the seemingly paradoxical combination of high intellectual ability and serious difficulties in learning, typically labeled as gifted/learning disabled (G/LD) (Brody & Mills, 1997). In the overall population of learners with special needs, this group of learners is a relatively small one, but it is a group, nonetheless, that requires specific attention to their academic, social, and emotional needs. It is important to recognize who operate at very high cognitive levels while they struggle to learn more basic skills and processes, and it is important to acquaint preservice teachers with the characteristics that allow this recognition along with strategies to accommodate them. Although preservice teachers often recognize that are diverse in their abilities (Moon, Callahan, & Tomlinson, 1999), they typically have little understanding of giftedness in learners and, even more in training future special education teachers, they see with learning disabilities as having many deficits and few, if any, strengths. Familiarizing preservice teachers with learners who present such diverse talents and needs as found in the G/LD student should help them to better understand that 1) many of the with learning disabilities (LD) in their classrooms need challenging and interesting content and opportunities to develop higher level thinking skills, and 2) there are strategies that are appropriate for helping who are G/LD that also benefit other learners. Particularly as states move to cross-categorical certifications for teachers and as greater numbers of with disabilities are included in general education classes, preservice teachers need a way to conceptualize the range of abilities and disabilities they will be expected to address. Understanding the gifted/LD student may help them to do this. Recognizing Students who are Gifted and have Learning Disabilities Students who are and have learning disabilities are those who possess an outstanding gift or talent and are capable of high performance, but also have a learning disability that makes some aspect of academic achievement difficult (Brody & Mills, 1997, p. 282). For example, a third grade student, with whom the author worked, had an incredible understanding of and passion for learning about space and astronomy. He easily understood the college level texts his mother read to him even though he was barely able to read at a first grade level. His difficulties with reading existed despite significant efforts both in school and at home to help him learn these basic skills. Identifying and providing programming for such learners is often difficult, and many teachers are unaware that these characteristics can co-exist. Gifted may be able to compensate for their difficulties and so are rarely referred for special services unless they display behavioral problems; students with LD who are rarely show consistently high achievement, [therefore,] they often go unrecognized as being gifted (Brody & Mills, p. …