|
Notes on
the Summary Report of the 1994
Summit Objectives: To provide an
overview of all of the current research,
policies and practices, and to provide an
objective picture of what is known and
validated.
Four Program Co-Chairs
for the Summit had special experience and
expertise and reflected major
constituencies concerned with learning
disabilities: Research (Reid Lyon, Ph D.,
National Institutes of Child Health and
Human Development); Public Policy (Tom
Hehir, Ed.D, Director, Office of Special
Education Programs, Department of
Education); Practice (Andrew Hartman,
Ph.D., National Institute for Literacy),
and Consumer Interest (Ann Kornblet,
Learning Disabilities Association of
America).
Overview
Summary Page 3:
Although approximately 15% of the
population are affected by learning
disabilities, they frequently go
undetected due to lack of awareness by
teachers, physicians and parents.
Among the array of learning
disabilities, deficits in basic reading
skills are the most prevalent and often
the most debilitating to children and
adults.
Although some learning
disabilities are now known to be
biological in origin, the treatments are
more often educational.
For the concerned parent and
teacher, the cottage industry of
treatments for those with learning
disabilities can be confusing, often
expensive, sometimes contradictory and
very frustrating.
Summary Page 4: The most recent
scientific discoveries about learning
disabilities have exciting implications
for helping children, but they have not
been quickly translated into appropriate
interventions for students with learning
disabilities, particularly in the
education system.
The field of learning
disabilities is somewhat fragmented
across a number of academic and
professional disciplines. Each of these
groups has focused on different aspects
of LD, which has led to disagreements and
differences in priorities; there are few
formal communication channels.
Summary Page 5: Despite the
substantial gains that have be made via
federal legislation for those with
learning disabilities since the passage
of Public Law 94-142, known now as the
Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act (IDEA) , and the Americans with
Disabilities Act, the uneven and
uninformed implementation of the law has
led to many tragic failures.
Statistics:
The Numbers and the Tragedies
- 50% of all
students in special education in
the public schools have learning
disabilities -- 2.25 million
children; Source: U.S. Dept. of
Education 1992
- 75% - 80% of
special education students
identified as LD have their basic
deficits in language and reading; Source:
National Institutes of Health
- 35% of students
identified with learning
disabilities drop out of high
school. This is twice the rate of
their non-disabled peers. (This
does not include the students who
are not identified and drop out); Source:
National Longitudinal Transition
Study (Wagner 1991)
- 60% of adults with
severe literacy problems have
undetected or untreated learning
disabilities; Source: National Adult
Literacy and Learning
Disabilities Center 1994
- 50% of juvenile
delinquents tested were found to
have undetected learning
disabilities; Source: National Center
for State Courts and the
Educational Testing Service 1977
- Up to 60% of
adolescents in treatment for
substance abuse have learning
disabilities: Source: Hazelton
Foundation, Minnesota 1992
- 62% of learning
disabled students were unemployed
one year after graduation; Source: National
Longitudinal Transition Study
(Wagner 1991)
- 50% of females
with learning disabilities will
be mothers (many of them single)
within 3-5 years of leaving high
school; Source:
National Longitudinal Transition
Study (Wagner 1991)
- 31% of adolescents
with learning disabilities will
be arrested 3-5 years out of high
school;
Warning! Learning
Disabilities DO NOT correct themselves!
Source: National Longitudinal
Transition Study (Wagner 1991) Learning
disabilities and substance abuse are the
most common impediments to keeping
welfare clients from becoming and
remaining employed, according to the
1992 report from the Office of the
Inspector General. Source:
Office of the Inspector General
on "Functional Impairments of AFDC
Clients".
Key Issues
The evidence is overwhelming that
many children with learning disabilities
are failing under the present
implementation of IDEA in the public
education system.
Summary Pages 7-8: Individual
states currently use one of several forms
of "discrepancy formulae" to
determine eligibility for services for
children with learning disabilities. In
order to determine this gap or
discrepancy between IQ (aptitude) and
achievement, students essentially must
fail for two years. This criteria
actually causes and promotes school
failure for students with learning
disabilities, and we know that school
failure leads to lack of self -esteem,
school dropouts or other negative
outcomes. Research funded by the
NICHD has now established that the
discrepancy formulae are invalid for the
purpose of identifying children with
reading disabilities, the most prevalent
type of learning disability.
Summary Page 8: Research
indicates that 75-80% of students
identified as LD have their primary
deficits in basic language and reading
skills, very specifically manifested in
deficits in phonological awareness.
Studies show that 74% of students
who are unsuccessful readers in the third
grade are still unsuccessful readers in
the ninth grade.
Clearly, the poor, or non-readers
do not acquire the same knowledge,
academically, as their peers as they move
through school, a recipe for
disaster.
Recommendations
Panelists repeatedly pointed out
that early intervention is less costly in
the long term both fiscally and socially.
The central aim in social and
educational policy must be redirected
towards the prevention of educational
failure.
Teacher
Development
Presenters on all panels
emphasized the basic necessity to improve
Teacher Preparation, not only with regard
to educators in the preschool and school
arena, but also those employed in adult
and correctional education.
Summary Page 9: The one area of
significant research progress for those
with learning disabilities has been in
the domain of reading. There is now a
great deal of knowledge about the
cognitive and linguistic characteristics
of reading disability and how these
students need to be taught. The tragedy
is that we are not exploiting what we
know, as these substantial research gains
are not being translated into
interventions that would reduce reading
failure. Illiteracy is at
extraordinarily high levels in the United
States, and improving the teaching of
reading would have great societal value.
Only 29 states require elementary
teachers in training to have coursework
specific to reading instruction, and even
in those states only 12 hours of graduate
training is mandated.
Collaboration
A formal collaborative strategy
needs to be developed, beginning with
what First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton
described as "a coherent strategy at
the national level".
Public
Awareness
Summary Page 10: It is time that
a major National Public Awareness
Campaign be undertaken to ensure that
both the public and professionals have a
clear idea about what a learning
disability is and what it is not. No
other disabling condition affects so many
people and yet has such a low public
profile and low level of public
understanding as LD. LD.
Funding
Summary Page 10: Under IDEA only
20% of the money promised is
appropriated, making the law an unfunded
mandate.
Summary Page 20: Funding support
is essential to place teacher
preparation the upgrading of an
entire profession high on the
national agenda.
Summary Page 21: (We must)
develop a national commitment of funding
education which equals the lofty ideals
expressed in much of the recent
educational reform legislation, such as
Goals 2000. Currently, research for
education is far outstripped by funding
for all other nationally supported
research.
Please
let us help you. Order your free
Info Pack
today.
Top
We
are eager to assist you and know our program will make a
difference. We will commit ourselves to your child’s
success.
ESSENTIAL LEARNING INSTITUTE
334 2nd Street, Catasauqua, PA 18032-2501
1 (800) 285-9089
thereishelp@ldhope.com
|
Copy of "SOLUTIONS FOR
STRUGGLING STUDENTS"
