Close

22/03/2017

Teaching Children with Learning Disabilities

Even during infancy, “regular” children can somewhat interact with their environment, digest rudimentary concepts, and plot maneuvers critical in solving their daily problems. Nevertheless, according to Bos and Vaughn (2005), for children with learning disabilities, having to process cognitive data, express emotions, solve basic problems and/or establish healthy interpersonal relationships is the perfect recipe for life-long misery – one characterized by recurrent episodes of self-loathing so severe they pose the threat of dire physical, cognitive and emotional consequences.

Normally, learning disabilities are induced by neurological disorders whereby the affected child experiences difficulties in organizing, retaining, interpreting and expressing cognitive information (Simpson & De Boer, 2009). Consequently, children with learning disabilities have difficulty reading, problem-solving, speaking and socialization. . As a remedy, daunting a task as it really is, teachers must strive to sufficiently understand the various types of learning disabilities. For instance, one learner may suffer from dyslexia (difficulty in reading), the other from dyscalculia (difficulty in Math), while yet another learner suffers from dysgraphia, effectively rendering him or her unable to comprehend the simplest of grammatical concepts. Still, others may have sight and/or hearing impairments.

Fortunately, however, competent teachers are capable of enhancing processing, storage, and cognitive information retrieval for affected learners. To achieve this, involved teachers must apply effective instructional tactics and implement relevant learning tasks. That is why, according to Smith (October 2007), the effective teacher ought to acknowledge the all-important fact that a special-needs learner is inevitably a poor time manager. Consequently, such learners are often unable to finish their work quickly compared to regular learners. They, therefore, need special care. Teachers should also proceed at teaching speeds that are favorable to special-needs learners who can only absorb, retain and retrieve information relatively slowly.