President's Message: Learning Disabilities Month: A Time to Celebrate

by Dr. Blanche Podhajski

October is Learning Disabilities Month. For me, it is a time to celebrate all we have learned from brain
science over almost half a century.  It is also a time to honor all of the successes of students with learning disabilities and their teachers.

 

What is a learning disability? 

A learning disability is a brain based difference in learning that makes some academic skills harder to acquire than others. A recent report, Don’t “Dys” Our Kids: Dyslexia and the Quest for Grade-Level Reading Proficiency, commissioned by the Campaign for Grade Level Reading and the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, indicates that about 2.4 million children and youth in this country have been diagnosed with learning disabilities. Most people are familiar with the term dyslexia, a neurobiological condition that is not the result of poverty, culture or developmental delays (Fiester, 2012).   Other learning disabilities are dysgraphia, difficulty writing and expressing ideas through written language, and dyscalculia, difficulty with math.

Whatever the kind of learning disability, 21^st century assessment that finds out how each brain works followed by customized instruction are the best ways to match learners to success.  We know from research what to do; we, all of us together, just have to do it.  And we have to support our teachers in the delivery of these research based best practices.

And the earlier we start the better!  We can help parents as well as early care and education providers offer play-based, developmentally appropriate activities to enrich sound awareness, vocabulary and the speech to print connection.  These early proactive steps can help equip children to learn how to decode and comprehend text.

I celebrate Emily and Brian, both Stern Center alumni who were devastated by their inability to read at ages 6 and 7 respectively.  Because of parents who recognized and shared their children’s frustrations, these young learners received the kinds of intervention that changed their lives.  Emily is now a magazine editor in Montana and Brian just recently published his first book, Conversations with Power, in which he shares interviews he conducted with world leaders Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and others.  

Congratulations to them, their parents and their teachers.  And in honor of Learning Disabilities month – we have a lot of knowledge to celebrate but we must act to capitalize upon it.


Dr. Blanche Podhajski, president and founder of the Stern Center, has over 30 years experience working with individuals with learning differences. She teaches and consults with educators throughout the country and is a frequent presenter at regional and national conferences.