SPECIAL EDUCATION

 "Specially designed instruction, at no cost to parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability. ( IDEA-Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)  Special education is in place to provide additional services, support, programs, specialized placements or environments to ensure that all students' educational needs are provided for.

 Children with Specific Learning Disabilities, or SLD's, is the fastest growing population of special education students whose difficulties require special education services, but are best served in an inclusive, general education classroom with supports. SLD's include dyslexia, aphasia, perceptual disabilities and brain injury

 Learning disability or neurobehavioral disorder is a classification including several areas of functioning in which a person has difficulty learning in a typical manner, usually caused by an unknown factor or factors.  While learning disability, learning disorder and learning difficulty are often used interchangeably, they differ in many ways.

 Learning disability refers to significant learning problems in an academic area. These problems, however, are not enough to warrant an official diagnosis.  Learning disorder is an official clinical diagnosis, whereby the individual meets certain criteria, as determined by a professional (psychologist, pediatrician, etc.)  The difference is in degree, frequency, and intensity of reported symptoms and problems, and thus the two should not be confused.  When the term "learning disabilities" is used, it describes a group of disorders characterized by inadequate development of specific academic, language, and speech skills  Types of learning disabilities include reading disability (dyslexia), mathematics disability (dyscalculia) and writing disability (dysgraphia).dyslexiadyscalculiadysgraphia

 Weak memory for visual sequences.  Weak memory for audtitory sequence.  Difficulty inferring or predicting. (This relates to comprehension in stories with questions like: What do you think will happen next? Why do you think the character did that? etc.)  Slower processing rate. (When 2-3 instructions are given, this child is often still processing the first instruction and will therefore miss the next instruction.)  Lacking permanence or transference of skill. (May appear to know something one day but not the next, or can do it in one subject but not another.)  Sound symbol relationships are often weak and the ability to de-code text is also weak.  Academic performance is full of gaps and often weak overall.  Word retrieval will be weak.  Will have a strong reliance on familar things and routines, needs to stay in the comfort zone.  Difficulty distinguishing between foreground and background noise.

 Problems pronouncing words  Trouble finding the right word  Difficulty rhyming  Trouble learning the alphabet, numbers, colors, shapes, days of the week  Difficulty following directions or learning routines  Difficulty controlling crayons, pencils, and scissors or coloring within the lines  Trouble with buttons, zippers, snaps, learning to tie shoes

 Trouble learning the connection between letters and sounds  Unable to blend sounds to make words  Confuses basic words when reading  Consistently misspells words and makes frequent reading errors  Trouble learning basic math concepts  Difficulty telling time and remembering sequences  Slow to learn new skills

 Difficulty with reading comprehension or math skills  Trouble with open-ended test questions and word problems  Dislikes reading and writing; avoids reading aloud  Spells the same word differently in a single document  Poor organizational skills (bedroom, homework, desk is messy and disorganized)  Trouble following classroom discussions and expressing thoughts aloud  Poor handwriting

 Diagnosing a learning disability is a process. It involves testing, history taking, and observation by a trained specialist.  Clinical psychologists  School psychologists  Child psychiatrists  Educational psychologists  Developmental psychologists  Neuropsychologist  Psychometrist  Occupational therapist (tests sensory disorders that can lead to learning problems)  Speech and language therapist