Learning Disabilities and Misunderstanding. In Bayntons Disability and the Justification of Inequality of America, he states that disability is the heart of discrimination.

by jpalz93 (student)

Learning Disabilities and Misunderstanding

Many Students around the world suffer from learning disabilities. These disabilities usually go unrecognized until it is too late and the student starts to fall behind in class, these children are often the brunt of much criticism from fellow students. In Baynton’s “Disability and the Justification of Inequality of America”, he states that disability is the heart of discrimination. This is usually because people don’t really understand a person’s disability. If more people knew about disabilities and understood the struggles that people with them went through then they would probably respect them much more. These children would have less pressure from peers and probably have an easier time in school.

Baynton describes many instances of how disability leads to discrimination. Differences of race, gender and nationality were viewed and described as a disability. Bayton explains how “…the concept of disability has been used to justify discrimination against other groups by attributing disability to them,” and “…disability was a significant factor in the three great citizenship debates in the nineteenth and early twentieth century …”(Baynton 2). The three great debates he is referring to are Women’s suffrage, African American freedom and civil rights. Women could not vote for the first one hundred plus years of America’s existence. They were thought to be not qualified of holding the responsibility of making choices in the government. Baynton views this as a “concept” of disability. This is how the idea of a disability is applied to any quality seemingly out of the ordinary. This concept of disability is applied to the abolition of slavery, the civil rights movement and immigration restrictions later in the reading in the same way. Disability is defined as: the inability to pursue an occupation because of a physical or mental impairment. This definition is the root of these three big debates. People did not find either of these groups capable of what they wanted or in most each case deserved. These debates prove that the longer people fight occasionally it can help sway the positions of society. This perseverance needs to be used to fight the misconceptions of disability.

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Learning disabilities sometimes can last a persons entire life without being diagnosed. Defined as “…a lifelong disorder that affects people’s ability to either interpret what they see and hear or to link information from different parts of the brain,” (Florida’s Bridges to Practice 2). Rochelle Kenyon is head of a project named Florida’s Bridges to practice, this is a program that focuses on identifying learning disabilities in early education and offering help for these students. Diagnosing a learning disability is very hard. Kenyon outlines many symptoms for various disabilities. Some of these symptoms include: trouble learning the alphabet, pronouncing words or syllables, dyslexia etc. Children, especially at an early age could be in denial of any of these symptoms. Usually people feel the children are just slow learners and will pick it up eventually. This denial can make it harder for the child to get help later. Sometimes students as old as high school and college are diagnosed with learning disabilities without the prior knowledge of ever knowing they had them. This Florida study found sometimes students even graduate college without ever knowing that they have a disability.

Some schools have realized that they are not properly diagnosing these problems. They are now giving more to diagnose and find any learning disabilities their students may have. This is known as Florida’s Bridges to Practice program. Education systems are confronting the problem now more than ever before. Higher status policy makers are changing too; “The U.S. Office of Special Education Programs has announced a draft-proposal to replace the current federal eligibility definition with a non-categorized definition of disability in the reauthorized IDEA,” (Operationalizing a Definition of Learning Disabilities 4). Categorizing a definition means creating categories based on different criteria that a person with a learning disability falls into. This has advantages and a major disadvantage. This way makes it easy to ‘label’ and describe a person with a learning disability easily by policy makers and what not. This way does not describe the full extent of a person’s disability. Some students would overlap into other categories but not be recognized for this. This new uncategorized approach will prevent this scenario from happening. It will describe a student by exactly his or her “disability” or can be thought of as identifying each student’s needs. A more detailed and personal approach like this will resonate throughout the educations system and create a much more successful, personalized and friendly learning atmosphere.

Schools around the world are totally altering the way that they approach learning disabilities. Policy makers and board members are changing their attitude regarding disabilities. The last key to the puzzle is changing the way society looks at learning disabilities, and maybe shed some light on them. As the case with the three great debates, negative attitudes and much criticism will occur. The question is how much and for how long.

The idea of seeing a learning disability as simply an area of difficulty a person faces, and not what is traditionally thought of as a disability can be compared to the idea of a team and working together. Seeing a person for who they are and always seeing ‘the glass half full’ is similar to a team not being about the individual and their competencies. In the movie Miracle coach Brooks needs to break down his team to teach them the core understanding of what it means to be a team. There isn’t one person better than anyone else on a good team. The coach makes them run suicides to break them down to ‘nothing’. When they are at ‘nothing’ they realize it’s not about being the best and they focus on their core values. This situation and principal should be used to look at attitudes towards people with learning disability or any type of disability. Without running suicides, extra laps, or exhausting anyone you can see past a person’s problem. You can see who they really are and what they are really about. This scenario is what each of the three great debates came down to in Baynton’s article. Black people were discriminated against for simply having dark skin. During the civil rights movement blacks showed the world how they are the same as white people. They are humans with names, jobs, families, and most of the same core values as anyone else. A person with a learning disability or any kind of disability no matter how mild or severe is the same way. They all have names and families and opinions. Simple or major differences don’t define a person; they simply are differences that should be recognized with respect and hopefully a lot of admiration. Even though we are clearly in a transitional phase it will take time to sway attitudes and opinions of many about people with disability.

Learning disabilities are an important part of the school system. If they don’t get recognized early it is very difficult for a student of any caliber to catch up on the work that they had missed. If caught early many more students would stay on track and not be put under pressure by their peers to perform. This could help them outside that classroom with their friends as well as learning inside. More importance needs to be brought to learning disabilities. This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. If more people understood these disabilities they would probably have more respect for these children.

Works Cited

Baynton, Douglas. "Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History." The New Disability History. Eds. Paul K. Longmore and Lauri Umansky. New York: New York University Press, 2001. 33-57.

Dr. Rochelle Kenyon. “Florida’s Bridges to Practice Program”. Floridatechnet.org. Final Overview. 2010

Shaw SF, Cullen JP, Mcguire JM, Binckerhoff LC. Operationalizing a Definition of Learning Disabilities. JDBP June Vol 3. 28:586, 1995