Disability or Learning Difference

Words and labels.  Is it a disability or learning difference?  It’s all in perspective, yet it’s important for diagnosis, in order to receive aid if warranted.  Still, the ‘label’ isn’t necessarily what we want to hear in a discussion in the classroom or among our peers.  It seems much kinder to use the word ‘different’.  After all, we are none the same.   We are each unique and that’s just as it should be.  

Not only are we all different, we all learn differently.  Certainly there are categories in which we may fit, but even within the categories, each person, each child learns at his own pace, from whatever angle his mind sees the subject, and even dependent on what else his body is doing at the time!

Babies have a time line of ‘growing.’  Some babies will roll as early as four months, and by six months, can roll from side to side.  My grand daughter at eight months still does not roll.  That said, she sits up strong and steady, has seven teeth, kicks her feet to ‘swim’ in her floaty in the pool and has an amazing personality.  Her body has been very busy doing other things.  She will roll when she’s ready!

Albert Einstein didn’t speak until he was four and waited to read until he turned seven, but eventually caught up and then surpassed all expectations!  Children learn differently.  But this, in their peer group, puts them in a different category!  When a child doesn’t ‘adhere’ to the normal scale, they are often considered stupid, lazy or just incapable of learning!  None of that is true!  Their brains are just on a different timeline, or look at the world a little different.

Imagine a classroom where a student is sitting with earphones on to help him decipher the words in the book he’s reading.  He has dyslexia; a medical diagnosis which allots him the aid of audio books, legally.  It’s how he learns and it’s good!

Another student one room over, is writing feverishly to get all the steps down to the Math problems. She couldn’t skip steps. She’d always come up with the wrong answer, and the teacher always seemed to skip steps when she did practice problems on the board. It was so confusing, but the teacher just assumed everyone could get it; just see it; know that it’s what you’re supposed to do, and come up with the answer.

I could easily be that little girl.  Neither the math student described, nor I, have a medical diagnosis, but like the child in the classroom, Math had the ability to create great anxiety in me. I’d do all the practice problems, homework and study. Still on test day, I’d look at the pages of math problems before me and then at the clock. I couldn’t skip steps. It’d take me longer. A degree of paralyzing fear would grip me before I even started!

According to statistics one in five people in America struggle on some level with ‘natural  genetic wiring’ that makes it difficult to read, do math, organize material, connect ideas, stay focused, hear and understand verbal instruction, process specific sounds, or even have the ability to just sit still for any length of time.  

For each of us who struggle with any of these, or a hundred other emotional, social or academic battles, we are left feeling frustrated because we don’t ‘fit’ in the given social parameters of what is normal,  or in the time line the world expects. 

We all have different adaptive and coping skills.  It’s important to remember this about ourselves; and also our peers, no matter where we might see them, be it on the street, in a conference room, or in a classroom. 

Photo Credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/685602743275876274/ 

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#SocialParameters #WordsAndLabels #Labels