Teach English in GAoling XiAng - Anqing Shi

Learning DifficultiesWhat does Richard Branson, Tom Cruise, Bruce Jenner, Keira Knightley have in common? They are famous people said to have learning disabilities. Many people have learned to manage their learning difficulties and become very successful like the people mentioned above. Teachers and parents should educate themselves so that children with learning disabilities can be identified as soon as possible and early intervention can be applied. Often, schools have programs designed for the special needs of the learning disabled. I worked at one of these programs and we had many learning disabled students come in to receive help. Below are some information about learning disabilities and my experiences with helping these students while working for a center for students with disabilities at a community college. There are many kinds of learning disabilities and likely there are many causes. However, all learning disabilities involve difficulties in learning which are not experienced normally. There are likely neurological reasons for most learning disabilities but the mechanisms are not well understood. Some forms of learning disability are reading related. Dyslexia is a common kind of reading disability and some experts have used it synonymously with reading learning disability while other have made distinctions between it and certain other kinds of reading disability. People with reading disability often have difficulties with reading fluently, accurately or with comprehension. Then there are the writing disabilities which involves impediments in spelling, in handwriting or other writing related functions. Finally there is dyscalculia or math learning disability which involves difficulties in learning math concepts, how to calculate, estimate or understanding numbers. Learning disabilities are normally assessed by a psychologist or psychiatrist using certain kinds of cognitive tests such as IQ tests. These measure general cognitive abilities and if there are large discrepancies between an individual's IQ score and their school performance or their performance on some learning task or measure of aptitude, then often a learning disability is the diagnoses. There are other more direct ways of assessing learning disabilities that are currently being developed. There are many ways to treat learning disabilities. Normally, treatment focuses on the particular learning weaknesses and use structured approaches concentrating on intensive instruction. Lessons are broken down into smaller segments and instructors make sure each segment is mastered and understood before going on to the next level. Mistakes should be corrected immediately and progress should be assessed regularly and often. Instructors need to be aware that usually more time is devoted to learning something than is normally needed and one may need to repeat some lessons to make sure students retain what had been learned. From my experience with working with students with disabilities, I have noticed that confidence in one's own ability to teach the concepts and in their ability to learn them goes quite some ways in helping them learn. There are also technologies and services that can help people with learning disabilities. When I worked with them, we used a device called the Kurzweil Reading Machine for the Blind and Dyslexic. The machine could scan any written text and ?read? it aloud for blind or dyslexic students. Many students used this device and were able to easily understand what they could not by reading or did only with great difficulty. We also used many props, models and pictures to convey ideas some students had great difficulty understanding. Our computer center had many math and science tutorials and these tutorials helped students with grasping concepts the textbook or lectures left obscure. We also employed services such as note-taking. Some students with reading or writing difficulties could not take notes or took notes that were not helpful to them so we took notes for them. The research into learning disabilities and my own experiences with helping students has shown that these students can often succeed in the classroom and beyond with the teaching methods and technologies now available. A little more attention, care with teaching and tutoring, encouragement and confidence in them will also do wonders.