What's in a Label?
by Carol Yaworski, Former Executive Director, LDAO
"I don't want my child labelled!"
In my almost two years at LDAO, I believe that this phrase best
characterizes both our greatest triumph and frustration as an organization,
and represents a parent's greatest educational dilemma. Countless
times since my arrival, I've heard this phrase and its faithful
companion, " My child's school doesn't want him labelled."
The context is usually a scenario in which a child several years
into their education is struggling to keep up. An otherwise bright
child is not learning to read or is failing math and his parents
and sometimes his school are desperate to find out why. The decisions
begin. Is an assessment necessary, should an IPRC be held or is
this just a manifestation of immaturity which time will correct?
Valuable time is often lost and the child falls even further behind.
At the heart of this statement is a parent's wish that their child's
opportunities not be limited and their fear that the label will
do just that.
In our efforts to help the public understand learning disabilities,
LDAs have delivered a series of messages that can both reassure
and demoralize. People with learning disabilities are of average
or above average intelligence. The term "gifted and LD"
is not an oxymoron. We all know of successful people in many high
profile endeavours who have a learning disability. This reassures
us that with the right help, a different way of learning can lead
to success. That's the good news, the positive message.
There are other accurate, yet less encouraging descriptors with
which everyone affected by learning disabilities struggles. It's
neurologically-based. Does that mean brain damage? It's called a
disability, a word that some reject in favour of euphemisms such
as 'learning differences.' And finally, it's a lifelong condition
which removes hope for permanent solutions or for outgrowing the
problem. These latter messages, while being honest and accurate,
are not messages of hope and understandably some people with learning
disabilities or those who care for them accept the positive messages
and reject the others. What's the harm, they'll ask?
There are two types of harm here. The first is a denial of access
to services and the second a more abstract but equally damaging
kind of denial.
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Let's deal with the first. The fact is that in order to receive
the appropriate remedial assistance under the new funding formulae,
an assessment resulting in identification is necessary to access
intensive funding (ISAs). Furthermore, under the Special Education
Per Pupil Allocation (SEPPA), receiving basic and sufficient remedial
services is often made very difficult. Too many school boards are
attempting to avoid the IPRC process and are not committing adequate
resources to professional, timely assessment. This is sometimes
done under the guise of wishing to prevent a child from being labelled.
Even if we accept a benevolent motivation, a lack of access to the
education that remediation brings seems a high price for a child
to pay. How can feeling better today be worth a lifetime of underachievement?
How can we also ignore the reality that the most successful people
with learning disabilities are those who understand what they can
and can't do and what they need to move forward?
More than it has been in the past thirty years, school attendance
is becoming a measurable process. Starting next year, students must
pass Grade 10 literacy tests to graduate from high school. As an
association, LDAO is pushing hard to ensure that LD students are
accommodated and not exempted because if they are, they will not
leave high school with the diploma and skills necessary to succeed
in post-secondary education, if that is their goal. A certificate
of completion and being warehoused rather than educated is a surefire
path to a life of dependency or at best subsistence jobs, when the
potential for much more often exists. It is our view that high school
students with learning disabilities must have access to the accommodations
necessary to level the playing field and to do that it is essential
to recognize the learning disability and what remedies are required.
Identification or labelling holds the educational system accountable
and provides the roadmap to appropriate remediation. There may be
occasions when a child receives the appropriate help without identification,
but they're becoming increasingly rare and it's a risk with lifelong
consequences.
Finally, let's look at the other argument against labelling, namely
the consequences on a child or adult's self-esteem and how they'll
be viewed by others. A disability is simply not being able to do
certain things, such as hear, see or walk. For someone with an auditory
processing problem, it can mean the inability to decode complex
oral instructions when a written list of those same instructions
poses no problem. For such a person, certain jobs, such as paramedic
work for example, will always be a problem and in that context they
will be disabled. However, any number of other options exist and
with the right information, the right choices can be made and doors
can be opened. When I hear a parent's reluctance to "label,"
I'm usually struck by the thought that the child knows that something's
wrong and that the learning disability label is invariably preferable
to the other labels they carry such as lazy, stupid, immature or
bad.
My most satisfying moments at LDAO have usually been with adults
who are delighted to learn after decades of heartbreak and confusion
that the source of their frustration has a name and that, while
this means that they'll continue to experience difficulties in some
areas, through self-awareness and eventfully self-acceptance, new
opportunities and options appear. We recently heard from a member
who wrote to thank us for help and support over the years which
has resulted in her son soon successfully completing his first year
at university. She describes with pride his ability to articulate
his strengths and weaknesses and identify the things that he needs
to offset his limitations. By facing his situation head-on, this
young man's parents have helped him to turn a label into a set of
instructions leading to a bright future.
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