Thursday, August 27, 2009

Learning Disabilities Thoughts

I have decided that there are some people in the world who really and truly don't know how to deal with kids who have learning disabilities. For all practical purposes these kids look normal, talk normal, and act normal. They do all that but for some reason in their brain, there is a glitch. Their mind has a little something that just doesn't quite get it. I have seen people treat these kids one of two ways. The first way is this--they treat the kids like the kids are being lazy and just not trying hard enough. This is the person that ticks me off. They don't take the time to stop and work with the kids to see if there is a way to figure out a solution or another way for the kids to learn that particular lesson. The other way is that people "dummy" everything down for the kids. There is a glitch, the kids are not stupid. "Dummying" things down isn't helping the kids, it actually hinders their ability to learn better. These people annoy me. Along this same line is the group of people that expect the "professionals" to take care of the kids and make sure that they get their modifications and such because these people aren't use to doing that kind of thing. They haven't had the "training" that the pros have had. Whatever!!
You see there are those people who really make the effort to work one on one and get into the kids' world to see if there is an alternative solution. These are the people that I applaud. They aren't afraid to try things more than once and they aren't afraid to really break things down until the lessons are learned. They will do whatever it takes to get the kids to really learn it all.
I guess I am sitting in judgement of people and I shouldn't do that. It just irks me though when people don't even try with learning disabled kids. These kids are as puzzled as the people who work with them about how to learn things. The kids get frustrated, nervous, agitated, and just plain mad because they cannot understand why they don't learn like everyone else. They know they are different and they know that they have problems. They don't need to be reminded constantly of that. They will grow up and hold productive jobs despite the people who "dummied" down the work thinking it would help them or the people who told them they were lazy.
I am willing to bet that you couldn't pick out most of the kids who have learning disabilities. There are those kids who are obviously disabled but what about the ones that don't look it, act like it, or show it?

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