Learning problems in children judged high-risk for handicapping conditions during the neonatal period
✍ Scribed by Lillian Whyte
- Publisher
- Springer US
- Year
- 1981
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 326 KB
- Volume
- 4
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0165-0653
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
In Canadian schools, one group of 'disabled' children has gradually surpassed all others in visibility in the last ten years -the so-called learning disabled child. The proportion of the education budget required to educate and counsel these children is increasing rapidly each year. While it is generally quite difficult to arrive at accurate prevalence figures, estimates ranging from as low as 1x-3'? (National Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children, 1968) to as high as 15% (Myklebust and Boshes, 1969) of all school-aged children have been proposed. It would appear that prevalence estimates are direcly related to the definition of learning disability being applied and definitions vary widely even within one area.
The learning disabled child is often described in medical, neurological, psychological and educational terms, yet definitive evidence which will allow for effective educational programming and counselling is lacking from any of these disciplines. Various etiologies are hypothesized including genetic factors, adverse social environment, so-called minimal brain dysfunction, and unfavorable birth history. The evidence for each factor cited is inconclusive.
The characteristics of learning disability cited in the literature include deficits in language, visuomotor, behavioral, academic, and social/emotional development. The manifestations of learning disability appear to alter as the child grows older (Rogan and Lukens, 1969), and to persist at least into adolescence and probably into adulthood (Rogan and Lukens, 1969; Whyte, 1981). Gordon (1970), Griffin (1971) Rosenthal (1973), and Silver (1974) have stressed that concomitant emotional and personality difficulties often are associated with learning disabilities in adolescents, making the task of diagnosis, programming, and counselling even more complex than in the elementary school. To further complicate the problem, the manifestations of learning disability may occur singly or in any one of a large number of