ADULTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES: THE ROAD TO SUCCESS

Different from most physical disabilities, a learning disability affects internal mental processes, and is therefore hidden from plain view. Its existence must be inferred from clients' descriptions of their learning experience, or from observed behaviours.

Specific question designed to elicit information about the client's learning history can be incorporated in any intake assessment interview. Some of the more pertinent questions to ask include:

Did you ever repeat any grades in school?
(If appropriate) Why did you leave school?
Were you ever given any special education assistance in the past?
If so, what kind?
How would you describe your reading abilities?
- Are you able to sound out words you don't know?
- If you can read the words, are you able to understand and remember what you read?
- Are you a fast reader?

Can you usually understand verbal directions, or what other people say?
Are you able to explain yourself when speaking so that other people understand you?

How would you describe your writing abilities?
- Can you organize your ideas to write?
- Do you usually put periods and commas etc. in the right place?
- How would you describe your spelling?
How would you describe your ability to do math or science?
How would you describe your social skills i.e. do you have difficulty making and/or keeping friends?
Have you ever been formally assessed (one-on-one) before for any learning difficulties?

What do you feel gives you the most difficulty when doing school or work tasks?
What do you find easiest to do?

Generally, responses that indicate a history of specific learning difficulties in some areas, but not others tend to suggest the presence of a learning disability.

Another reason for gathering this information is to begin to determine where the client's learning strengths and weaknesses might lie. This data can be used as a starting point from which strategies can be developed.

The checklist that follows represents another way to identify whether a client is likely to have a learning disability, and it is based on observations.

CHECKLIST OF ADULT LEARNING DISABILITY CHARACTERISTICS

The following characteristics are those that tend to be more frequently observed among adults with learning disabilities. Because there is such a large variability in the individual nature of one person's learning disability, some characteristics may be true for some, and others true for other L.D. adults.

GENERAL:

Difficulty generalizing skills from one situation to another
Perseveres with one approach to a task even when proven unsuccessful

PERFORMANCE INCONSISTENCY:

Possesses a well developed spoken vocabulary and verbal sentence structure, but written thought appears very disorganized, or immature
Understands and follows printed information, but experiences difficulty absorbing verbal instructions
Comprehends and is able to recall details well, but has difficulty identifying important points
Thinks clearly and concisely in discussion, but has difficulty expressing or comprehending information that is written
Sizeable discrepancies between various academic tasks:
- Reading/Writing
- Word identification/Reading Comprehension
- English/Math (not attributable to E.S.L.)
- Writing organization/Writing mechanics (i.e. spelling)
- Math understanding/Math computation

CONCENTRATION PROBLEMS:

Easily distracted by background noise and/or visual distractions
Difficulty paying attention to, and sometimes understanding or remembering oral instructions (APPEARS not to listen)
Difficulty sustaining attention to tasks
Difficulty priorizing tasks or information in terms of importance, and allocating time and attention accordingly
Tendency to daydream

COMMUNICATION:

Difficulty grasping what others say to them
Inappropriate use of words, or mispronounces words
Misinterprets differences of meaning implied by tones of voice
Inaccurately responds to nonverbal messages such as varied facial expressions, eye contact, body and hand gestures
Interprets language literally, rather than understanding hidden meanings or figures of speech

PERCEPTUAL-MOTOR:

Appears clumsy, awkward and apparently accident-prone
Has problems working with hands
Copies inaccurately (particularly from board or overhead).
Poorly formed letters
Reversals, rotations and inversions of letters and numbers
Difficulty perceiving spatial attributes
Difficulty locating precise information on the page

DIFFICULTY WITH TIME AND SPACE:

Confuses up with down; left with right; gets easily lost
Arrives late or unusually early for class
Difficulty adjusting to new routines/schedules
Problems in preparing and following simple work schedules

ACADEMIC:

Reading :

Difficulty remembering sound-symbol associations (phonics) on a consistent basis
Difficulty reading with any fluency; reading never seems to progress beyond a stilted word by word effort
May be able to read individual words fluently ("word call") but have little to no comprehension of what they just read
Can comprehend word meanings and individual sentences, but has difficulty comprehending whole paragraph
Bases comprehension of passage almost exclusively on background knowledge of the topic

Writing:

Appears to have well developed ideas in conversation, but unable to communicate these in writing
Written work lacks organization, and the writer seems to become mentally sidetracked, shifting from topic to topic
Requires extended time to produce written work
Difficulty selecting the right word, and may show inappropriate use of prepositions
Difficulty identifying errors, or awkwardness in own writing
Difficulty learning grammar...seems to lack a sense of how language seems to naturally flow

Spelling:

Confuses letter order
Misses middle syllables in multi-syllable words
Spells exclusively by sound
Some words may be completely unrecognizable
Substitutes wrong word (with a totally different meaning) which may be visually similar to the intended word

Mathematics:

Difficulty understanding mathematical concepts
Difficulty recalling the sequence of a procedure in math
Difficulty learning and/or remembering the timetables with any consistency
Appears to understand the concept, but makes many careless mistakes in written work

Work and Study Habits:

Difficulty getting work started…procrastinates
Difficulty sustaining effort on a task
Inability to define essential requirements of a task
Passive approach to learning
Excessive test anxiety

SOCIAL:

Difficulty establishing good relations with others
May appear to be socially immature
Shows flat facial expression (little apparent emotion) or shows exaggerated expression
Seems unresponsive to nonverbal, social cues
Difficulty working with others in groups
May stand too close to others when talking
May frequently interrupt or blurt out inappropriate comments

OTHER:

Low self-esteem
Over dependence on others
Low tolerance for frustration
May startle easily
Difficulty assuming another person's perspective
Tendency to blame others for their own difficulties

Problems with Leaning Disability Checklists:

At first glance, the checklist can appear overwhelming in its description of negative attributes associated with learning disabilities. It is constructed this way out of necessity because, unfortunately, it is when something is wrong that one is alerted to the possibility that some sort of abnormality in learning proficiency may be present. Certainly no one individual would display all the characteristics or even most of them. Depending on the areas of strength and weakness, and the size of the discrepancy, different behaviours would be observed. Although the checklist is intended only as a guide, it can be confusing because many of these listed behaviours can be true for any of us at certain points in time. An individual would be suspected of having a learning disability if several of the characteristics listed were consistently observed.

When working with adults at the literacy level, another difficulty with such a checklist emerges: how to determine when the observation of some of these behaviours represents a normal stage of learning a new skill, and when it suggests the presence of a learning disability. In other words, how do you decide if someone simply needs more practice in order to become proficient at a skill that they are only now learning, or if those difficulties represent a learning disability in which case, a different method should be tried, instead of persisting with the same approach?

This is perhaps one of the most difficult questions to answer with adults working at the literacy level, but valuable insight can be gained from reviewing their learning history as a child. By asking the student questions as to whether they experienced similar difficulties learning this type of material as children, important information can assist you in making such a judgement. If the student appears intellectually capable in other respects, but is showing little progress in one particular area that seems incongruous with what you might expect, based on your knowledge of this student as well as your experience with other adult students, your suspicion of a learning disability is probably quite accurate.

WHY THE CONFUSION?

There are three main reasons why learning disabilities continue to be a frustrating topic to many:

Since we all have strengths and weaknesses, when the size of the difference is the distinguishing feature, it can appear vague and absent of concrete criteria.

Mental processing is internal to the individual, and therefore hidden from view. It is a "hidden disability".

There is such a large amount of individual variation among different learning disabled adults that it is difficult to come to any consensus in terms of characteristics.

The learning disabled population is a very heterogeneous group, and so it can be difficult to identify and/or treat in the same way. To alleviate confusion, there have been many attempts to make learning disabilities more clear-cut by introducing rigid classification criteria. In other words, professionals have tried to make a very heterogeneous group homogeneous for the sake of simplicity. In fact, the problem with much of the research conducted in the past involves the fact that the learning disabled subjects studied were treated as one group with common attributes.

Close this screen