Learning Disability

LEARNING DISABILITY (LD)
Characteristics, Assessment and Diagnosis
KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN SLP

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN 1
Definition of Learning Disabilities:

Through the intermingling of many
professions,
multidisciplinary
breadth
is
evolving in the field of LD. However, because so many diverse professions are concerned, a confusion of terminology and seemingly conflicting ideas pervade current discussions in the literature. Several dimensions of the problem have been considered to define LD:
KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN
Neurological dysfunction or brain impairment Uneven growth pattern Difficulty in academic and learning tasks Discrepancy between achievement and
potentiality
Definition by exclusion
Neurological dysfunction or brain impairment:
Attempts to identify organic etiology, Johnson and Myklebust (1967, p. 8)s concept of LD we refer to children as having a psycho
neurological learning disability, meaning that

behavior has been disturbed as a result of a dysfunction of the brain and that the problem is one of altered processes, not of a generalized incapacity to learn.
Uneven growth pattern:

Emphasis is on irregular development of
mental abilities. Examination of profiles of

sub skills reveals that growth in the various areas is uneven and inconsistent. Myers and Hammill (1969) refer to this pattern as the Principle of disparity.
Difficulty in academic and learning tasks: Samuel Kirks definition (1962, p.263). A
learning
disability
refers
to
retardation,
disorder, or delayed development in one or more of the processes of speech, language, reading, spelling, writing, or arithmetic resulting from a possible cerebral dysfunction and/or emotional or
behavioral disturbance and not from mental

retardation, sensory deprivation, or cultural or instructional factors.
Discrepancy between achievement and potentiality

Focus is on discrepancy between what the child is
potentially capable of learning and what in fact has been learned.
Bateman (1965, p220) defines children with specific learning disabilities as those who manifest an
educationally significant discrepancy between their

estimated intellectual potential and actual level of performance related to basic disorders in the
learning processes, which may or may not be

accompanied by demonstrable CNS dysfunction and which are not secondary to generalized mental retardation, educational or cultural deprivation, severe emotional disturbance, or sensory loss.
Definition by exclusion Children with LD do not primarily fit into any other area of exceptionality i.e. they are not primarily mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed, culturally deprived, sensory handicapped.
Johnson and Myklebust (1967, p.9) reported In those having a psycho neurological learning disability, it is the fact of adequate motor ability, average to high intelligence, adequate hearing and vision, and adequate emotional adjustment together with a deficiency in learning that constitutes the basis for homogeneity.
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Emergence of Learning Disabilities field Early development

#
The first systematic clinical studies of specific
reading disability were reported in 1917 by

James Hinshelwood, a Scottish Ophthalmologist. He examined a number of cases in which adults
suddenly lost the ability to read while other
areas of mental functioning remained intact. It

was attributed to damage to specific areas of the brain.
He also studied children who had extreme difficulties acquiring reading skills with quite normal abilities in other intellectual skills e.g. Hinshelwood studied a 10 year old boy with
severe reading problems which was attributed to

a condition called congenital word blindness resulting from damage to the brain area that stored visual memories for words and letters.
Orton (1947) proposed that the reading disability was caused by delay/failure, in establishing dominance for language in the left hemisphere of
the brain.
He used the term strephosymbolia or twisted symbols to refer to difficulties in reading reversible words (saw and was, not and ton) or letters (b & d, p & q) correctly. Explanation offered were confusions between the visual images of these stimuli projected on the 2 different brain hemispheres.
Werner
and
Strauss
work
placed
more
emphasis on deficient learning processes than on the specific academic tasks that were affected.
The deficient learning processes are centered mostly on what today would be called
distractibility,
hyperactivity
and
visual
perceptual and perceptual motor problems (behavioral cognitive difficulties).

# Werner
and Strauss were influenced heavily
by the work of Kurt Goldstein, who had studied the behavior of soldiers (with head
wounds during World War I).
# Characteristics
observed were: inability to
inhibit responding to certain external stimuli, figure background confusions, hyperactivity, meticulosity and extreme emotional liability.
15
THE STRAUSS SYNDROME:
The terminology put forth by Strauss and his associates provide to be confusing. Further, it was observed that some children with brain injuries, for e.g. many with cerebral palsy, have no learning disorders.
Four objections to the term brain injured child were presented by Stevens and Birch (1957).
The term brain injured child is a cause-oriented or

etiological concept. It does not relate to the symptoms or behavioral aspects of the condition.
The term can be associated with other conditions,

such as cerebral palsy or epilepsy, and these conditions have no relation to the kind of child
under consideration.
The term brain injured child does not help in the development of a sound teaching approach. The term is not suited for use as a descriptive concept because it is too broad in meaning and easily leads to oversimplification.
Stevens
and
Birch
(1957)
recommended,
therefore, that the name Strauss syndrome be used instead of brain-injured child to describe the
child who could not learn and did not easily fit into
other classification schemes.
The
term
Strauss
syndrome"
thus
was
introduced to describe the child who exhibited several of the following behavior characteristics (Stevens and Birch, 1957, p-348).
Erratic
and
inappropriate
behavior
on
mild
provocation
Increased motor activity disproportionate to the Poor organization of behavior Distractibility of more than ordinary degree under Persistent faulty perceptions Persistent hyperactivity Awkwardness and consistently poor motor
stimulus

ordinary conditions

performance
Learning Disabilities:
The term was first suggested by Kirk (1963).
It was described as a group of children who had disorders in development of language, speech, reading and associated communication skills needed for social
interaction.
Children who had sensory handicaps/learning failure caused by emotional disturbance/experience

deprivation were excluded from the LD group.
Epidemiological Data
National Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children (1968)- 1.0 to 3.0% National Advisory Committee on Dyslexia and
related reading Disorders (1969)- 15.0%

Kass and Myklebust (1969)- 3.0 to 5.0% Meir (1971)- 15%
21
Etiology of LD
There is no consensus on the specific causes of LD (Taylor, 1995). This is probably because so many different types of children are given the label and there
are many causes for the problems.
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Behavioral model
Most researchers believe that LD is related

to central nervous system deficit. genetic, prenatal or postnatal factors. The neurological deficit could be the result of Environmental causes
Developmental Causes
Educational Causes
Classification of LD: Kirk and Gallagher (1989)

developmental academic
Attention disorder
Memory disorder
Lang. disorder Perceptual disorders
Spelling d/s Handwriting d/s
Reading disabilities
Thinking disorder
Arithmetic d/s
24
Denckla, 1978; Erenberg, Mattis and French, 1976; Mattis, French and Rapin 1975; Identified 3 independent clusters of difficulties
(syndromes) among children and adolescents with LD:
Primary presenting syndrome is a language disorder syndrome:
characterized by problems in language comprehension and expression, developmental word finding difficulty
(dysnomia) and speech discrimination problems

prevalence among LD: 40% - 60%.
Articulatory syndrome:
and
graphomotor
dyscoordination
Characterized by articulatory, writing and drawing
difficulties
(difficulties
in
performing
motor
actions). Prevalence among LD: 10% - 40%.
Visuospatial perceptual deficit: Characterized by visual discrimination (e.g. differentiating similar visual stimuli) and visual memory problems. Prevalence among LD: 5 15%.
27
Clement (1966), includes the following 10 frequently cited attributes: Hyperactivity Perceptual-motor impairments Emotional liability
Co-ordination problems
Disorders of attention Impulsivity
Disorders of memory and thinking

Academic difficulties Language deficits
Lerner (2000) recent list include the following learning and behavioral characteristics of individuals with learning disabilities:

Disorders or attention Poor motor abilities Psychological process deficits and information processing problems Lack of cognitive strategies needed for efficient learning
Oral language difficulties

Written language problems Social skills disorders
Attention disorders and LD
Selective attention
LD children are deficient in this task
Sustained attention
LD children-no deficit ADHD-made more errors
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Memory
Sensory register
Long-term memory
Short-term memory
Working memory
31
Research on the sensory register of LD children suggests it is intact. Elbert (1984) reported that LD and non-LD students
are comparable at the encoding stage of word

recognition, but that LD children require more time to conduct a memory search (Manis, 1985). Lehman and Brady (1982) found that reading disabled and normal readers were comparable in their ability to encode word information. However, RD children relied on smaller sub-word components in the
32
decoding process than did normal readers.
Many accounts of poor recognition of quickly presented information by LD children have
been attributed to attention deficits.

Bauer (1979a) has argued that the attentional resources of the LD children are adequate for performance on a variety of memory tasks.
That the residual differences are not great

enough to account for the differences in memory performances.
Short-term memory
The exact nature of problems with STM is somewhat
obscure in LD students (Cooney and Swanson, 1987).
Torgesen and Goldman (1977) studied lip movements of children during memorizing tasks. LD children were found to exhibit fewer lip movements than the
NLD students. To the extent that these lip

movements reflect the quantity of rehearsal, these data support a rehearsal-deficiency hypothesis.
Swanson (1983c) found that LD children rarely reported the use of an organizational strategy when they were required to rehearse several items. He reasoned that the problem was a failure to perform elaborative processing of each word. Elaborative processing was defined as processing that goes beyond the initial level of analysis to
include more sophisticated features of the words and

ultimately the comparison of these features with others in the list.
Another major source of STM processing difficulty has

been related to LDs childrens lack/inefficient use of a phonological code (sound representation).
Evidences
Torgesen (1988)s study:
Task: Verbatim recall on sequences of verbal

information. Result:- LD students performance deficits are due to coding errors of and represent LD the phonological memory features language; childrens
problems relate to acquisition of fluent word

identification and word analysis skills.
Long-term memory
Numerous studies have also shown that LD

children are less skilled than NLD peers in the use of rehearsal strategies used to store information in the LTM (Bauer, 1977a,b, 1979; Traver et al., 1976; Torgesen and Goldman, 1977).
Swason (1984b, 1987e) - LTM deficits may arise from failure to integrate visual and verbal memory traces of visually presented stimuli at the time of storage or retrieval (due to semantic memory limitations).
Some investigators suggested that LD childrens LTM is intact, but the strategies necessary to gain access to this information are impaired.
Working memory Swason et al., 1989 reported that LD readers WM was inferior to NLD readers.
38
Perceptual and perceptual motor behavior & LD:
A majority of the research published prior to 1976 was concerned with perceptual motor behavior of brain injured and / or reading
disabled children, and little experimental

research dealt directly with memory difficulties (Hallahan and Cruickshank, 1973).
39
children who have auditory verbal comprehension
disabilities resulting from CNS dysfunction hear but do not

understand what is said . Language disabilities of this type have been described in both children and adults and have
been designated as receptive aphasia, sensory aphasia,

auditory verbal agnosia or word deafness These disabilities should be differentiated from the language deficits resulting from deafness or mental retardation. (Johnson and Mykelbust, 1976, 74). Measures of childrens ability to accurately interpret others nonverbal communication (e.g. smiling, eye contact etc., ) thus provide an important way to measure their social perception and cognition.
Thinking processes and LD (Wong, 1991): LD adolescents are found to have ineffective thinking processes. Effective approaches cue
students to use
Cognitive strategies e.g. paraphrasing, imaging, predicting, setting priorities.
Thinking behaviors related to reflecting on and

evaluating the way a task is being approached and accomplished.
This prompts students to use metacognitive processes involved in analyzing the task and setting goals, monitoring the problem solving process during its implementation, and
reviewing
or
checking
to
determine
whether/not goals were met.
42
Relevance of metacognition to LD (Bernice Y.I. Wong, 1996)

Metacognition is an important construct in reading research, and metacognitive strategies have been
shown
to
differentiate
readers.
between
skilled
and
unskilled
More
important,
reading
researchers have shown that teaching students
metacognitive strategies in reading enhanced their

reading comprehension.
LD students appear to have less sophisticated

metacognitive skills than non-LD peers in reading (Wong and Wong, 1986). Metacognitive problems in the LD may be due to lack of reading exposure / experience and motivational problems.
Awareness of the purpose of reading, evaluating ones own comprehension of given instructions/ of materials read reflect metacognitive skills in reading (Wong, 1985).
Visual processes in LD Dale M. Willows (1991) It focuses on visual perception and visual memory
abilities of individuals who have difficulties in

processing written language manifested in the areas of reading, spelling, handwriting and written composition.
Visual processing deficits are considered to be

potential contributing factors in written language disabilities.
Visual perceptual processes
Visual perceptual process Compared normal and disabled readers- differ in how quickly-perceive and extract information Results: disabled readers:do not process visaul information as fast as normals
Visual memory process
Techs used temporal integration backward masking effect

Major components which a no. of LD children find difficulty in:
Form perception
Figureground discrimination
Spatial relationship
Visual motor integration
47
Visual
memory
processes
Later
visual
processes:
Visual recognition memory
Reading
disabled
children
were
less
accurate and slower in their visual recognition performance (Willows et al. 1988; Lyle and
Goyen, 1975).
48
Reproduction from visual memory Poor readers performed as well as normals in
ST and LTM of Hebrew letters and words

symbols unfamiliar to both groups (Vellutino et al. 1977). Disabled and normal readers may differ in draw
unfamiliar visual patterns from memory task

(Lyle, 1968).
Language problem as causes of early reading problems

Language processing skills
Ability to recover syntactic and semantic structure of phrases and sentences Phonetic PR-do not STM comprehend Poor readers-less sentences and sensitive to also have manipulation of trouble with phonetic struc. Of grammatical KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN 50 the material forms
Speech perception skills Poor readersdifficulty in speech perception
Vocabulary skills (lexicon) Poor vocabulary directly correlated with poor reading abilities.
Characteristics of language learning disabilities in school-age children (Shames and Wiig, 1982)
Early language delay or early histories of

speech or language problems are important
signals
of
potential
language
learning
disabilities (Ingram, 1970; and Mason, 1976).
51
Patterns of intellectual functioning
Weschsler intelligence scale for children - Revised (Weschsler, 1974), a norm referenced test provide
evidence
of
discrepancies
between
verbal
and
performance intelligence. WISC-R gives 3 scores: full scale IQ
verbal IQ
performance IQ. obtain lower verbal than performance IQs, with discrepancies of 10 or more points (Mattis et al. 1975).
Students with learning and language disabilities tend to
Academic achievement:
Profiles of academic underachievement in children with otherwise normal potential for learning may be used to identify children at risk
for language disabilities.
Many children with
language learning disabilities show one of two academic achievement patterns (Rourke, 1975).
53
# Reading and spelling achievement are below grade level, while arithmetic achievement is
at/above grade level expectations.
# Academic achievement in reading, spelling

and arithmetic are uniformly below grade and intellectual level expectations.
54
Problems in interpersonal communication Demonstrated in everyday situations and in school activities. They typically have difficulties in following oral directions in classroom and in interpreting and answering wh-questions accurately (Little, 1978; Schwartz and Murphy, 1975).
They may not be capable of adapting their language and communication styles to listeners needs/to fit the interpersonal context (Bryan, 1978). They are less able to communicate descriptive information about pictures (Snyder, 1979) and are delayed in achieving communication competence (Shames and Wiig, 1982).
Deficits in (Semantics)
knowledge
of
word
meanings
# Delays in acquisition of word meaning may persist into adolescence if language intervention and remediation is not provided. # They may have difficulty with multiple meaning words, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions. # Poor interpretation of alternative meanings of sentences with dual meaning words (Wiig, Semel and Abele, 1981) has been reported e.g. Chickens ready to eat (ambiguous sentences).
Deficits in knowledge of word formation rules (morphology) # Children with LD may ignore hard to hear parts of words, such as word endings, unstressed words, phrases and parts of clauses, when listening to and interpreting spoken language (Golick, 1976).
# They focus on and remember words in phrases, clauses, sentences and paragraphs which stand out because of stress or high information content.
# The word endings used for inflection and derivation may cause special problems because of their short duration and low intensity in running speech.
Phonological conditioning is the process by which the choice of inflectional word endings is governed by nature of final speech sound in the immediately
preceding word.
The major difficulties experienced by all children with LD is in acquiring the phonological conditioning rules for the ez and ed variations of the
inflectional word endings (noun plurals ending in /z/,

and past tense of regular verbs ending in /d/).
Deficits in knowledge of sentence formation rules (syntax). LD children will have trouble learning sentence transformations like the passive in which the usual order of presentation of agent action object is altered, interrupted, or reversed. These delays are reflected in both interpreting spoken language and formulating sentences.
The syntactic deficits persist into adolescence and young adulthood if they remain untreated (Wiig and Semel, 1976, 1980).
The adolescents with LD have difficulty in understanding, remembering and using structurally complex sentences.
Their
greatest
difficulties
occurred
when
sentences were syntactically well-formed but

violated word-selection rules, as in colorless green ideas sleep furiously or when they contained a random word string. Not in a tree to the lake with.
Word finding difficulties (dysnomia) in children

with LD
Understanding and recognition of intended words present. But they are unable to retrieve the The recurrent intended word on command.
search for specific words often results in
characteristic speech patterns (Wiig and Semel,

1980).
Evidence of dysnomia in LD Children (8-10 years) and adolescents with diagnosed dyslexia made word substitution errors / circumlocutions and word association errors compared to nondyslexic children/academic achievers of the same age (Denckla and Rudel, 1976; White, 1979). German (1979) reported that children (8-11 year old) with LD had word finding difficulties with relatively low frequency words and tasks involving open-ended questions. Her findings of a related study showed that LD children used 3 significant word substitution patterns.
Strongest pattern - intended word was substituted by a word of less complexity in meaning and with greater range of application. E.g. rein-string.
Intended word was substituted by functionally descriptive word e.g. shelf-book holder.
Weakest pattern initially, sounds were said and
discarded, followed by accurate naming e.g. comb

be, be, comb.
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Because of the complex way LD is defined, the task of identifying the true student with LD guarantees that a battery of tests will be administered. 8 types of tests or methods are commonly used in assessment of LD:

Norm-referenced tests. process test informal reading inventories criterion-referenced tests direct daily measurements ecological assessment curriculum-based assessment portfolio assessment
Norm-referenced tests
These are designed so that one students score can be compared with those of other students of the same age group who have taken the same test.
Because the deficit in academic achievement is the

major characteristics of students with LD, standardized achievement tests are commonly used. Some standardized tests used are:
66
# Iowa tests of basic skills (Hieronymus and Lindquist, 1978). # The Peabody Individual Achievement test (Dunn and Markwardt, 1970). # The Wodcock-Jhonson (Woodcock, 1978). Psychoeducational Battery
# The Wide Range Achievement test (Jastak and Jastak, 1965). # Durrell Analysis of Reading difficulty (Durrell, 1955) # The Gates-Mckillop Reading Diagnostic Test (Gates and McKillop, 1962) # Grays Oral Reading test (Gray, 1965).
Process tests The concept of process, or the ability testing grew out of the belief that learning disabilities are caused by a basic underlying difficulty of the child to process, or use, environmental stimuli the same way that children without disabilities do. These general abilities are categorized under headings such as visual perception, auditory perception and visual-motor co-ordination. Two of the most used test are: Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic McCarthy and Kirk, 1968).

Abilities
(Kirk,
The Marianne Frostig Developmental Test of Visual KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN Perception (Frostig, Lefever and Whittlesey, 1964). 68
Informal Reading Inventories
This usually consists of a series of progressively more difficult sentences and paragraphs that a student is asked to read aloud. By directly observing and recording aspects of the students reading
skills-
such
as
mispronunciations
omissions,
of
vowels/consonants,
reversals,
substitutions and comprehension- the teacher can determine the level of reading material that is most suitable for the child and the specific reading skills
that require remediation.
69
Criterion-referenced tests
Here the childs score is compared with a pre-
determined criterion, or mastery level. One of

the test widely used by special educators is Brigance Diagnostic Inventory of Basic Skills (Brigance, 1983) which includes 140 skills sequences in 4 subscales: readiness, reading,
language arts and math.
70
Direct Daily Measurements
This is a means of observing and recording everyday, a childs performance on the specific skill being taught. Measures such as correct rate (number of facts stated or written correctly per minute), error rate and percentage correct are often recorded.
Advantages
Gives information about the childs performance on the skill under instruction. This information is available on a continuous basis so that the teacher can adjust the childs program according to changing performance. 71 KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN
Ecological assessment It encompasses 2 related perspective:
Students with LD are seen as possessing a behavioral ecology in the sense that changes in one behavior may affect other behaviors. Behavior is viewed within an environment context whereby changes in one environment condition causes change in another condition, which in turn, affects the childs performance. Thus, an ecological assessment takes into account both the student and various environments in which he or she lives. KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN 72
Ecological assessment date are obtained through a

wide range of sources:
interviews with parents and other caregivers tests academics products direct observations behavioral checklists.
Curriculum-Based Assessment
This is a form of criterion-based reference. In this

model, a childs performance, usually in the areas of math and reading, is evaluated several times a week with test items mirroring the daily instructional tasks (Deno and Fuchs, 1987). The students performance is then charted or graphed so that specific educational goals are easily recognized.
74
Portfolio Assessment
Is an example of authentic assessment. This is a collection of samples of a students best work gathered over a period of time. According to Paulson, Paulson and Meyer (1991) a portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the students effort progress, and achievements in one or more areas.
One of the critical issues in portfolio assessment is knowing what to include in the portfolio and how to evaluate the persons effort.
Tests which employ Receptive tasks:
Test for auditory comprehension of language (Carrow, 1973) and Peabody picture vocabulary test (Dunn, 1965, 1980) Assesses lexicon and morphology: Task: identification/recognition.
The vocabulary comprehension scales (Bands, 1975); assesses vocabulary, morphology, syntax and semantics. Task: acting out. KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN 76
Bankson language screening test (Bankson, 1977). Assesses lexicon, morphology, syntax and semantics. Several items of BLST uses judgement task (child is asked whether the sentence produced by examiner is right/wrong or silly/ok).
The Stephen oral language screening test (Stephen, 1977)

Elicited imitation syntax and semantics. task assesses morphology,
77
North-western syntax screening test (Lee, 1971) Delayed imitation task assesses same skills.
Test of language development (Newcomer and Hammill, 1977) Carrier phrase task assesses morphology, and syntax sentence production task assesses morphology and syntax.
78
Diagnostic tests for language learning disabilities in school age children
Test of Psycholinguistic abilities (ITPA): J.McCarthy and W.Kirk, 1968
S. Kirk,
Detroit tests of learning aptitude (DTLA) Harry J. Baker and Bernice Leland, 1967. The test of language development (TOLD): Newcomer and Hammill, 1977.
Clinical evaluation of language functions (CELF): Semel and Wiig, 1980a

The Marianne Frostig Developmental Tests of Visual KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN Perception (Frostig, Lefever and Whittlesey, 1964). 79
80
The term Dyslexia is widely used to refer to children whose reading problems reflect developmental language impairment. The term specific reading disabled is sometimes used to refer to these children. A problem with this term however, is that it places emphasis on written language deficits rather than the more general language deficits associated with the disorder. The most appropriate label may be language learning disabled. This label means that it is first and foremost a language disorder rather than just a reading disorder.
A dyslexic is a child who is normal/above at least in nonverbal IQ, two years behind the reading achievement and with a reading disability that is not explainable primarily by social, economic,
motivation, or emotional factors (Perfetti, 1985).
82
EPIDEMIOLOGY
10 million students experience problems in learning to read (National Institute of Child
Health
2000).
&
Human
Development
(NICHD),
83
ETIOLOGY
Reading disabilities are the result of an interplay of intrinsic and extrinsic factors (Kamli, 1999). Intrinsic factors refer to internal to child based
processes,
while
extrinsic
factors
concern
environmental variables.
I. II.
Intrinsic causes of reading disabilities Extrinsic causes of reading disabilities

I. Intrinsic causes of reading disabilities
1. Genetic basis
2. Neurological basis
3. Visual based deficits

4. Attention based deficits
5. Language based deficits
II.
Extrinsic causes of reading disabilities
1. Early literacy experience 2. Reading instruction

CLASSIFICATION OF RD
Two
basic
classification
systems
based
on
IQ
achievement
useful.
discrepancy
and
neuropsychological
profiles (cognitive processes) were not proved to be
Researches have focused directly on reading and on
the
individual
differences
children
display
in
learning to read.
1) Subtypes based on listening comprehension versus

word recognition problems 2) Dysphonetic, dyseidetic and alexic subgroups 3) Subjects based on nature of word recognition deficits
4) Reading styles global vs analytic learners

5) Deep, phonological and surface dyslexia 6) Rate disabled vs accuracy disabled readers 7) Catts (1999) comprehensive classification system
1) Subtype based on listening comprehension versus word recognition problems: Based on theory of reading called the simple view of reading (Gough et al. 1986, 1990), according to which reading comprehension can be thought of as word recognition plus listening comprehension. It suggests that children with RD can be divided into subgroups. Word recognition
Poor
Listening comprehension
Good Other
Hyperlexia
Good
Poor
Dyslexia
LLD
All the subgroups, i.e. dyslexia, language learning

disability (LLD) and hyperlexia have reading comprehension problems but for different reasons:
Inaccurate and / or slow decoding skills dyslexia Language and cognitive deficits hyperlexia (reading comprehension is poor, but word recognition is good)
2) Dysphonetic, Dyseidetic and Alexic subgroups
Developed
by
Elena
Boder
(1973)
based
on
misreading and/or misspelling.
Dysphonetic subgroup: deficit in auditory analytic skills. They have difficulty learning and using route. These children display phonological
phonetically inaccurate misreadings and misspellings

e.g. pronouncing block as book or spelling scramble as sleber.
Dysseidetic readers: deficit in visual route.
Words are misspelled misread as phonetic

renditions e.g. reading talc for talk or spelling laugh as leaf.
Alexic subgroups: deficit in both phonetic and visual reading/spelling skills
91
3) Subtypes based on nature of word recognition deficits Basis:
Word recognition is possible through two route i.e. visual and phonological route. Words are recognized directly based on spelling / orthographic patterns in visual route. Words are recognized indirectly by
using sound letter correspondence rules to decode

the word in the phonological route.
4) Reading styles
Carbo (1992) divides children into:
- Global learner / readers who learn to recognize words best through a sight word approach (visual route).
-
Analytic readers who learn to read by phonic method (phonological route) This classification system is questioned as children need to have good phonetic decoding skills to break the alphabetic code as well as good orthographic skills to develop accurate and automatic word recognition.
5) Deep, phonological and surface dyslexia Deep dyslexia----difficulty in
phonetic decoding pronouncing nonwords (cannot be recognized by visual route and must be sounded out using sound letter correspondence rules). semantic errors in reading e.g. reading sun for moon visual errors (wife and life) morphological errors (misreading prefixes and suffixes) greater facility reorganizing content words as opposed to function words (Thomson, 1984).
Phonological dyslexia --- difficulty in
phonetic decoding.
pronouncing nonwords.
Surface dyslexia ---
Problems with visual route.

Identified on the basis of their misreading. E.g. reading chalk (tfa:k/) as chalk KUNNAMPALLIL (tfa:lk/). GEJO JOHN
95
6) Rate disabled vs accuracy disabled readers
Lovett (1984, 1988) proposed 2 subtypes of RD:
Accuracy
disabled
children
significant
problems in decoding accuracy.
Rate disabled children marked deficit in
reading rate despite grade appropriate decoding

ability.
Combining subtypes in research and practice Catts (1999) gave a comprehensive classification system.
Subtypes Listening comprehension Word recognition
Dyslexia
Good
Poor
Phonological Surface Rate disabled Phonological Surface Rate disabled
LLD
Poor
Poor
Hyperlexia
poor
Good
Types of reading problems
Visual discrimination
Auditory discrimination
Sound blending
Memory skill
Letter and word reversals Word analysis skills Sight words Literal Comprehension skills
Informal assessment of reading disability
Areas of informal reading assessment:
Reading rate
Reading accuracy
Word recognition
Reading comprehension
Vocabulary, and Spelling
Formal assessment of reading and spelling disorders Assessment area: (Torgesen, 1999) Phonemic awareness Tests
The Rosner test of auditory analysis (Rosner, 1975) consists 13 items, oldest test of phonemic awareness (for grade K-5th) Lindamood auditory conceptualization test (Lindamood and Lindamood, 1979). Requires manipulation of colored blocks to indicate number, identity and order of phonemes in a series of nonsense words. Reflects decoding skills (For grades K-6 and 7th grade to adulthood). KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN 100
Test of phonological awareness (Torgesen and

Bryant, 1993) contains 2 subtests based on sound comparison activities, group administered test (For kindergarten and first grade).
Yopp-Singer test of phoneme segmentation (Yopp,

1995) (For kindergarten & I-grade children); consists of 22 items; requires child to pronounce individual phonemes in words.
101
The phonological awareness test (Robertson and Salter, 1995). (For kindergarten through 5th grade): Consists of 6 different subtests to assess
abilities like segmentation, blending etc.
The comprehensive test of phonological processes in reading (Wagner & Torgesen, 1997) (from K.G. to high school) consist of sound comparison sub-tests,
phoneme blending and segmentation subtests, rapid

naming ability, short term memory for phonological information tests.
Assessment area: Word recognition Tests of sight word reading ability: Assessed using word identification subtest of
Woodcock Reading Mastery. Test-Revised (Woodcock,

1987) and the reading subtest of the wide range achievement test-3 (Wilkinson, 1995).
The words on these lists increase in complexity and

length and decrease in frequency of occurrence in the English language.
Tests of phonetic decoding ability
Best assessed using non-words to minimize the use of sight reading e.g. for decoding test using non-words is the word attack subtest on
the Woodcock reading mastery test revised

(Woodcock, 1987).
104
Tests of word recognition fluency The Gray Oral reading test 3rd edition (GORT-3) (Wiederholt and Bryant, 1992) consists of 13 reading passages of increasing difficulty, with 5 comprehension questions for each passage. The amount of time the child requires to orally read the passage is documented. The passage score reflects the combination of reading speed and accuracy, and typical norm reference comparisons are available for this score. But, this test is too difficult for beginners and disabled readers through 2nd grade (Torgesen, 1999). KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN 105
To address the difficulty with GORT-3, Torgesen

and Wagner (1997), developed the test of word reading efficiency and the nonword reading efficiency test to assess fluency and accuracy in word recognition test.
It comprises list of words/non-words of increasing complexity. Child is asked to read as many words as he can in 45 secs. The score is the average number of words read on both tests.
Assessment area
Narrative schema knowledge
It
is
tested
in
ways
(1)
use
of
comprehension based measures like asking questions about a story or (2) productive measures such as requiring the student to
generate a story (Westby, 1999).
107
Westby, Tough (1981) lists 4 types of questions for assessing childs comprehension of a narrative:
Reporting: What was the boy doing here? happened here?
What
Projecting: What does the boy feel? What did he say to big frog? What is the frog thinking? Reasoning Why is the frog thinking that? Why does the boy feel angry? Why did the tree fall down? Predicting: What will happen next? What will the big frog do now? (Westby, 1999).
Another way to assess narrative skills:
Give a wordless picture book and ask the child to tell you a story about the book or ask the
students to tell a story about an event in their

lives or to make up a story without any visual prompts (Westby, 1999).
109
DSM IV diagnostic criteria for reading disorder: 315.00 A) Reading achievement, as measured by individually administered standardized tests of reading accuracy / comprehension, is substantially below that expected given the persons chronological age, measured intelligence and age appropriate education.
B) The disturbance in criterion: A significantly interferes with academic achievement or activities of daily living that require reading skills.
C) If a sensory deficit is present, the reading difficulties are in excess of those usually associated with it.
Differential diagnosis of dyslexia Co-occurring with 1. CAPD Individuals with CAPD have normal intelligence and hearing acuity but are unable to process auditory information effectively, due to dysfunction in lower / higher level cortical processes. It causes difficulties in detection, interpretation and categorization of sounds (Schow and Nervonne, 1996). CAPD should be ruled out by an audiologist in children who exhibit signs of language based LD/reading and/or spelling disorders.
111
2) Attention deficit disorder / ADHD 3) Co-occurrence ADD/ADHD of dyslexia with CAPD and
Children should be screened for phonological awareness skills during pre-kg, and KG years. Assessment should focus on word recognition and word comprehension and on skills necessary to recognize and comprehend language.
These areas include reading and listening comprehension, vocabulary testing, decoding, spelling, reading speed, dependency on context and metacognition. In addition, a comprehensive history should be taken (Betry)
Written language and learning disabilities
Written language is considered to be one of the highest forms of language. Abilities and experiences in listening, speaking and reading usually precede the development of writing skills. Difficulties in any of these other language areas will certainly interfere with the acquisition of the written form of language (Johnson and Myklebust, 1967). Children with various reading problems for e.g. invariably experience spelling disabilities. KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN 113
Handwriting (penmanship) Assessment
a)
Categories of error types (Mann, Suiter and
McChung, 1987; Zaner Bloser, 1975).
1) Letter formation: It refers to the appropriateness of a written letter. 5 categories of letter formation (Gueron and Maier, 1983).
114
i) Round letters:
a) Clock wise letters (e.g. k, p) b) Counter clockwise letters (e.g. a, c, d, o, q) ii) Looped letters Above the line (e.g. b, d, e, f, h, k, l) Below the line (e.g. g, j, p, q, y) iii) Retraced letters (e.g. i, u, t, w, y)
iv) Humped letters (e.g. h, m, n, n, v, x, z)

v) Others (e.g. r, s)
2) Spacing errors:
It refers to the way letters are distributed within words and to the ways words are spaced within a phrase. It should be uniform.
116
3) Slant errors:
Both manuscript and cursive handwriting contain slant. letters. It should be uniform. It can be assessed by drawing a straight line through the It then becomes apparent whether
the letter posses uniform slant.
117
4) Line quality:
It refers to thickness/thinness of lines
within a letter/between letters of in the thickness and heaviness
a of
word. Quality of line should be uniform produced letters.

5) Letter size and alignment:
i.e. the proper height and width of letters (size) and
the proportion/relationship of the size of letters

within a given word (alignment).
e.g. certain lower case letters are usually one quarter-inch high (i, u, e); other letters are one half inch (e.g. l, h, k, d, t)
and others are 3 quarters inch (e.g. l, h, k, b)

lower loop letters extend one half inch below the line.
6) Rate of handwriting
If it falls below an optimum speed, it will
cause difficulties, rate of handwriting speed

= No. of letters / minimum (Zaner-Bloser, 1984).
120
b) The most common handwriting errors are (Jordan, Dale, R. 1972)

1.
Difficulty with alphabet symbols Does not remember how to write certain letters / numerals Distorts shapes of certain letters or numerals Has difficulty transferring from manuscript to cursive writing Fragments certain letter / numeral forms Has difficulty distinguishing capital and lower case letter forms
2. Confusion with directionality

Writes
certain letters, numerals, or words in mirror image
Marks
Uses
from bottom to top when forming certain letters / numerals

backward (clockwise) motions when forming
loops in certain letters / numerals

Erases
/ overprints habitually to change directions of certain letters/numerals
Writing
tends to slant up, down or to wobble up and down.

3. Difficulty copying simple shapes

Distorts Has
simple shapes, - fails to close corners
difficulty producing simple designs from memory deteriorates exercise toward and of writing
Work Has
difficulty staying on lines when tracing
In addition to poor motor skills, handwriting problems may be due to inadequate visual perception ability or even various motivational difficulties.
Pre-writing skills:
Pre-requisite for mastering handwriting skills.
Includes:
bodily relationships (up, down, top and bottom) recognition and copying of different sizes and shape
correct pencil grasp

paper position Posture
Kimmell (1970) suggests that a number of L.D

children have not had the experience of handling, twisting, grasping, clutching, or squeezing objects in order to develop finer hand and finger muscles. The manipulation of pencils / crayons is consequently both frustrating and difficult for these children.
Letter formation
# The
addition, omission or reversal of certain letter strokes seems particularly troublesome. reversed letters include b, d, p, q, and
# Commonly
y.
# Letters
u and n are also very frequently, inverted. general letters are comprised entirely of vertical and horizontal strokes (e.g. T,JOHN L, H, F). KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO 126
# In
Most difficulties seem to occur in those letters in which straight lines and curved lines are combined (e.g. h, r, f, b) (Wallace & McLoughlin, 1975). Lewis & Lewis (1965) found that incorrect size was the most common type of manuscript error among first grade children. Letters which descend below the line (p, j, y, etc.) were often printed in the wrong size.
127
Manuscript writing
# Most
schools initiate handwriting instruction with
manuscript writing.
Usually around the end of
second grade or the beginning of third grade, children are taught cursive writing. Irregular spacing of manuscript letters/words is
seen in some children.

# Many
children have difficulty in remembering how

to write certain letters.
Letters with simple strokes (e.g. I, t, l) are easier to remember than those with a number of different strokes (e.g. b, m, k).
Many times letters are reversed because of left right orientation problems or simply because the child cannot remember the correct position. Since most capital letters are not the larger version of lower case letters, it is necessary to learn 2 manuscript forms of each letter.
Cursive writing
# Children
who experience extreme difficulties
with manuscript will also experience failure with cursive writing (Wallace and Kauffman, 1973).
# Some
LD children do not conceptualize/visualize
cursive writing as the printed form which has been connected.

# The
child thinks of cursive writing as an entirely

new writing system.
The complex movements of cursive writing contribute to the difficulty of this writing style.
In addition to the vertical, horizontal and curved strokes found in manuscript writing, the mechanics of cursive writing require many intricate and precise movements which require fine motor coordination.
131
Left-handedness
Left-handers
assume a natural and comfortable writing position once the paper is slated opposite to the position used by right-handed writers (Otto, McMenemy and Smith, 1973). enables to see better what they have written and to avoid smudging. also tend to have back slant of writing. A severe back slant suggests to use manuscript writing instead of cursive for some children.
This
They
II. Spelling Assessment

The ability to spell requires auditory and visual
discrimination, memory, sequentialization, analysis and synthesis and the integration of all these skills (Johnson and Myklebust, 1967).
133
Phonics ability
Spelling skill involves the ability to transpose sounds (phonemes) to letters (graphemes) accurately. Many LD children have great difficulty in sound symbol association. They have difficulties in auditory memory, auditory discrimination and application of various phonic generalizations to spelling words. Child who incorrectly spells cat as cad or sad as sat will require remedial work in basic auditory perception skills + graphemic component of each sound. KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN 134
Bureckner and Bond (1955) suggest that the emphasis with poor spellers should first be to learn to associate sounds of single letters and their written symbols and then proceed to letter and phonogram combinations.
Many children omit entire sound units from various

words because of auditory perception difficulties (e.g. rember for remember). Some others add unnecessary sound units (e.g. booker for book).
135
# Literal
transformation of what is heard into
written form is also commonly observed. E.g.
exciting
mistree.
# These
as
icsiting
or
mystery
as
children will require help in building
adequate visual imagery for words and in applying phonic generalizations.
136
Visual memory of either individual letters / the sequential order of letters in words, also affects spelling ability.
The child who has trouble revisualizing letters in a word would make gross errors in spelling since the
child can recall very little visually about the word.

#
Sometimes, the correct order of the letters is not
recalled e.g. girl as gril or mother as mother

i.e. visual sequential memory deficits.
Mnemonic devices for remembering spelling patterns can be used by some children with spelling disabilities. 2 illustration of mnemonic aids are:
# #
Market is mark with et at the end. City is it a c at beginning and a y at the end.
Motor memory
# Fernald #
(1943) points out that in spelling the child must know every detail of the word form. It is not enough to merely recognize the word, as in reading.
#A
number of LD children have difficulty in remembering the sequential movement pattern of letters. often lack the ability to remember the kinesthetic feel of a word / the movement of the hand in writing certain words.
# They
Formal spelling assessment: The Test of Written Spelling-2 (Larsen and Hammill, 1986):
# Norm-referenced # The
test designed for a use with students in grades 1 through 8. test uses a dictation format to assess the childs spelling. the spelling of 50 predictable words and 50 unpredictable, words.
# Assesses
# Scores
can be converted to grade equivalents and spelling ages along with spelling quotient.
Diagnostic Screening Test: Spelling (Gnagey, 1983)

#
It measures spelling proficiency in 3 categories: phonics (rule spelling), sight spelling (spelling from memory), and total spelling ability. Used with students with children in grades 1 through 12. It can be administered on small groups, however, individual administration is recommended because it yields verbal and written spelling scores as well as further diagnostic information concerning the students gross and sequential memory abilities. The test has 2 forms (A and B).
# #
Written expression Assessment:

#
Many LD children are unable to utilize
the written form of language as an effective

means of communication.
Some are unable to transfer ideas to written communication, while others make grammar and syntax errors (Myklebust, 1965).
142
Expression of ideas
Many children can orally express ideas but have in ability to organize thoughts into the proper / logical form for written
communication.
Some LD children who have had extensive and appropriate input experiences but are still unable to communicate in writing.
Syntax and grammar

#
Some of the more frequent written syntax errors are word omission, distorted word order; incorrect verb and pronoun usage, incorrect word endings and lack of punctuation (Myklebust, 1967).
The rules of grammar are also very confusing to many LD children. Learning the parts of speech, tenses and the rules of usage is difficult for the child with memory / conceptualization deficits.
Inadequate vocabulary
# Leading
to inadequate written expression:
Some LD children have poor spoken and written language vocabularies because of the lack of various experiences to impoverished oral language backgrounds.
145
Mechanics of writing
#
Capitalization, punctuation etc. should be given less attention to avoid interference with the basic objectives of improving written expression of ideas (Otto, McMenemy and Smith, 1973). Many LD children are unable to identify correctly / utilize commas, periods or question marks. Punctuation symbols are often confused with each other / not used at all. Some of the difficulty that these children have with punctuation seems due to the fact these marks are symbols and many LD children have symbolic disorders 146 (Johnson and Myklebust, 1967). KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN
Assessment of Writing Skills

#
The composing problems of students with LD go beyond mechanical ones such as spelling, punctuation and grammar (Poteet, 1978; Houck and Billingsley, 1989) to include higher order cognitive and metacognitive problems (Newcomer and Barenbraum, 1991). Specifically, they lack knowledge of the writing process and metacognition about writing, such as what writing is about, its purpose and what constitutes a good writer (Englert and Thomas, 1987; Graham, Schwartz and MacArthur, 1993; KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN 147 Wong, Wong and Blenkinsop, 1989).
Formal assessment of writing / composing skills (By

Pro-Ed Publishers)
# Test of written language (TOWL) (for elementary school student)
# Test of adolescent language (TOAL) (for high

school children) # Writing skills test (Thomas, 1961) # Picture story language test (Myklebust, 1965)
148
Informal assessment of writing: Procedure:

# Present the student with 5-8 pictures of his/her hobby. Ask him to choose one of the pictures about which he is write a paragraph of 8 sentences. In analyzing the writing, note the following:
# Disproportionate amount of time taken to

produce the desired amount of writing.
# Monotonous and unvarying format of the
sentences
# Paucity of vocabulary # Poor spelling # Occasional grammatical and punctuation errors
# Ambiguous sentences / parts of sentences
150
ARITHMETIC LEARNING DISABILITIES:
151
ARITHMETIC LEARNING DISABILITIES

# Dyscalculia
definition: (Dys + L. Calculo, to add):
Acalculia is the inability to use mathematical

symbols; in a less severe form, it is often referred to as dyscalculia (Nice Harryman & Krshed).
# Arithmetic
deficiencies include problems with
measurement decimals, fractions and percentages

in addition to computational difficulties (Bryant and Kass, 1972).
Etiology of difficulty in arithmetic # Lack of learning readiness / cognitive in competency e.g. ability to discriminate various sizes and shapes which is related to later numerical discrimination. # Inappropriate emphasis of rote learning of isolated skills and facts: the newer math programs require the children to apply the previously learnt skills which emphasize comprehension of various concepts.
Age differentiations
Children with arithmetic difficulties can be found at all age levels. Johnson & Mykelbust (1967) reported that these children had history of many early nonverbal problems, they rarely enjoyed
working with puzzles, blocks or models and

they had trouble in matching or sorting objects, differentiating various sizes.
Memory influences many arithmetic skills

Inability to recall specific tables hinders arithmetic operation.
Likewise, the child who cannot remember

the shapes of 3 or 7 will encounter difficulties in recognizing these numerals.
155
Spatial relationships
It is essential for differentiating for e.g. 9
from 6 and 21 from 12 (Bryant and Kass,

1972).
Kaliski (1967) also emphasizes its importance for arithmetic achievement. Difficulties often encountered are with spatial relationships as high-low, top-bottom and beginning-end.
Spoken language
The language of arithmetic often requires the
child to attach additional meanings to word/terms that are already known.
157
Right-left orientation
# Also determines arithmetic achievement. # While reading is conducted from left to right (in some languages), addition, subtraction and multiplication are calculated in opposite direction i.e. from right to left. # The fact that division is from left to right adds to the confusion (Scheffelin, 1969).
158
Types of arithmetic disabilities (AD)

1.
Shape discrimination
2.
3.
Set and numbers

Counting
4.
5.
Place value
Measurements
6.
Time telling
159
7. Size discrimination
8. One to one correspondence

9. Auditory visual association
10. Computational skills

11. Monetary value
12. Quantitative language
160
Shape discrimination
#
The ability to perceptually differentiate various shapes (e.g. a circle from a square or a triangle) is a pre-requisite for later
success in many arithmetic processes.
161
Size discrimination
#
If concrete geometric concepts like bigsmall, long-short and abstract numerical concepts such as more-less cannot be
established, then the child might be unable

to learn abstract number concepts (Kaliski,
1967).
162
Set and numbers

#
LD may have difficulty with the concept of a set. E.g. recognizing commonalities that describe a box of chocolates, a basket of apples / a group of boys or a set; identifying certain sets i.e. classifying or grouping of objects into sets can be also difficult. All equivalent sets share common property of numbers. Many children with LD cannot discriminate among sets of varying size because the number property of a set is not understood. KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN 163
One to one correspondence ability

# It
is crucial for development of meaningful
counting.
# Preschool
and primary age children with learning often show difficulties in E.g. they do not
problems
understanding this concept. parking spaces.
understand that 4 cars would need 4 vacant
164
Counting
#
Determining number of elements in a set. Counting is the first step in arithmetic training (Bareiter & Engelmann, 1966). Inability to count meaningfully later
hinders basic computational skills of addition and subtraction.

Counting difficulties
skipping numbers when counting aloud (e.g. 1, 3, 4, 6 etc.)
unable to grasp the concept that each number in counting series describes an element and failure to comprehend that final number refers to all elements of the set.
After counting 5 objects, children will often respond incorrectly to the question How many did you cont.
Also, designation of order of each element in a set, by an ordinal number (first, second etc.) may be affected. E.g. inability to tell the 4th chair in the row, the 2nd day of the week of 6th month of the year
Auditory visual association

E.g. difficulty with associating spoken word six with the written symbol 6 or even with the written word six.
167
Place value / positional patterns

#
Difficulty in understanding the concept that a value, based upon power ten, is assigned to each position in a numeral and also that, positional notation increases in value from right to left. E.g. the same digit (e.g. 4) may be denoted different degrees of magnitude according to its place in the numeral (14, 47 or 422) which a child with place value difficulty may not understand.
168
Computations like addition and subtraction will also depend upon understanding of place value. Arithmetics which require carrying / borrowing e.g. the child who adds 63 and 18 and writes the answer as 71 has obviously not comprehended the concept of place value. It is very difficult for some children to understand that our system of numbers make it possible to convert a number unit to the next higher/smaller unit (Ferngold, 1965).
Computational skills
#
Fundamental
arithmetic
processes
of
addition,
subtraction,
multiplication
and
division are based on foundation skills of one-to-one correspondence, counting and set notations.
170
Common computational errors:

Addition
# # # #
Subtraction
Errors in combination Counting Carrying Faulty procedures
- Combinations - Counting - Regrouping - Faulty procedures

Division
Multiplication
# # # #
Combination Counting Remaining difficulties Faulty procedures
- Combination - Counting - Carrying - Faulty procedures

The majority of computational problems

which are exhibited by children with LD certainly seem to be related to the mode of presentation.
The use of horizontal algorithm (e.g. 10+5 = )

instead of vertical algorithm (+ 0) will serve to be less confusing for some children with left to right difficulties.
172
Furthermore,
children
usually
better
understand subtraction when it is introduced
as
the
inverse
as the
operation
inverse
of
addition,
of
multiplication as an extension of addition and division operation multiplication, rather than when each of these operations is introduced as a totally new
arithmetic process.
173
Measurements
Most widely used area of applied mathematics in the elementary school curriculum (Virginia State Department of Education, 1970). It includes: # Basic principles like taller shorter, longer-smaller. # Types of measurement liquid (teaspoon, cup etc.); weight (ounce, pound, ton etc.), time (day, month, year, decade, etc. and length (inch, foot, yard etc.). # Concept of volume, bar graphs, circle graphs (intermediate grade and secondary level mathematics program). The children may encounter KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN difficulty with the basic or more advanced skills. 174
Monetary value
LD children may find difficulty to learn
# Various
coin
currency
denominations,
misnaming coins, confusions between coins.
# Learn
different
combinations
of
coins,
add/subtract coins.
175
Time telling
#
One of the most difficult quantitative skills
for adolescent with LD.
Poor
sequence
of
time,
coupled
with
complexity of clocks number system are possible contributing factors to poor time telling skills (Peterson, 1973).
176
Number identification difficulties also complicate childs ability to distinguish different times. for expressing. 7:15 fifteen after seven, quarter after seven etc. difficulty in understanding that 24 hour in a day are indicated on the clock as 2 sets of 12 were reported (Peterson, 1973). fact that there are two 6O clock each day might be very puzzling to some LD children.
# e.g.
# Finally,
# The
Quantitative language
# Concepts like more less, before after, or big little are early indicators of later mathematical disabilities (e.g. what number comes before 3) # Other quantitative terms: small, large, more than, fewer than and as many as some children have trouble with quantitative terms because of receptive language difficulty.
# Operational signs: Johnson and Mykelbust

(1967) reported that a child is helpless in solving a problem unless he perceives the process sign and known its meaning.
#Some children cannot differentiate a + from a

-, others find it difficult to perceive particular symbols as a whole i.e. the equal sign = might be perceived by some children as two separate subtraction signs.
Error patterns in arithmetic computations

#
Arithmetic
computation
problems
are
less
frequently detected / harder to detect than
reading problems.
#
Robert Ashlock (1976) provided a detailed examination of various idiosyncratic error patterns found in normally achieving childrens arithmetic computations.
The broad but major categories of the error
patterns are:
180
1. ERRORS DUE TO PARTIAL COMPLETION OF THE GIVEN PROBLEM
Student just completes half the problem, leaving the rest untouched e.g.
66 -4 52 x6 271 x8 39 +5 86 +8
45 -2
56
278
34
84
181
2. ERRORS DUE TO INCORRECT PLACEMENT AND REGROUPING It denotes faulty procedural applications of placement and regrouping. E.g.
59 +6 63 -7 42 -9 518 -21 317 -25 17 7 28 3
515
64
47
317
112
749
624
182
3. ERRORS DUE TO INCORRECT PROCEDURES IN COMPUTATION E.g. instead of completing the addition in the ones column, and then continuing to the tens columns, the student does this.
16 +2 42 +7 65 -2 73 -2 38 x2 45 x3 26 x4 35 x5 11 x7 21 x4
38
119
43
51
36
45
164
255 98
96
183
4. ERRORS DUE TO FAILURE IN MASTERING THE CONCEPT OF ZERO
20 x4
400 x7
507 x4
507 x4
84
2877
2068
2088
184
ASSESSMENT IN MATHEMATICS
KeyMath Diagnostic Arithmetic Tests:
#
It is a norm-referenced test, designed for students in KG through 9th grade. There are two forms of tests (A and B) It has 13 subtests or strands distributed in 3 areas of basic concepts, operations and applications.
# #
Each form of the kit contains 2 free-standing test books and easels, an administration and scoring manual, and individual record sheets.
Each form consists of 258 items. KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN
185
Stanford Diagnostic Mathematics Tests (Beatty, Madden, Gardnr and Karlsen 1976):
# #
Can be used as a norm-referenced or criterionreferenced test. It is designed to identify areas in need of remediation and aid in instructional planning. The results of this test can be used for individual students or for class, school etc.
#
#
There are 4 levels which are color-coded.

Each levels of these subtests contains 3 major subtests: Number Systems and Numeration, Computations, and Applications. KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN 186
Behavioral characteristics of LD
#
Considerable
discrepancy
between
perceived
intelligence
and
actual
academic performance.
187
Emotional characteristics
# Excessively anxious, frustrated and/ or stressed # Uneven patterns of motivation # Poor self-esteem and a lack of feeling of self-worth # Highly sensitive to criticism and / or resistive to help
Social characteristics
# Poor/limited eye contact
# Inappropriate social behavior with authoritative persons / peers

# Problems controlling impulses, reasoning, defining problems and evaluating consequence # Difficulty interpreting non-verbal elements of social interaction # Problems establishing relationships with staff and peers KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN
189
Physical characteristics
# Prone to motion sickness and migraines # Awkward gross motor movements # Susceptible to extreme and total fatigue # Sensitive to strong purfumes and some sounds, and # Physical pain in the wrist / hand when producing written work
Abilities of LD
# The development of a compensatory skills and a range of strong variety of coping
strategies.
# Improved intuitive and heightened perceptive skills #Often very outgoing social personalities # Highly creative and visual thinking due to the difference in size and functioning of right hemisphere of brain
# Superior mechanical skills
# An ability to see the whole picture and an aptitude for linking ideas # Excellent ability to visualize in 3D
# More imaginative solving problems skills and #Highly persistent
193
Definition
A Nonverbal Learning Disability (NLD) refers to a subtype of learning-disabled children who have outstanding deficits in:
#
Interpersonal relationships
#
# # # # #
Visual spatial organization

Organization and planning skills Flexible concept formation Study skills Specific academic areas Social judgements
Causes
#
White
matter
(especially
in
right in
hemisphere)
dysfunction;
deficits
working memory or executive processes
195
196
Verbal Functioning
#
Verbal assets of NLD children include all areas of receptive language. NLD children are known to have excellent phonology or auditory conceptual abilities at the sound level of processing. In addition short term and long term auditory memory are areas of strength; vocabularies are well developed and expressive language is often elaborated.
# However
deficits can be noted during early in the motor planning of the
development
speech/language process.
# As
the NLD child develops language skills, often
the rhythm or prosody of language is an area of weakness as is the give and take of language, the content grammar and structure the semantics, syntax and pragmatics.
# Auditory
attention and concentration with verbal material are strengths for NLD children, but they are not as proficient when working on tasks that require either sustained tactile or visual attention. verbal memory skills can be well developed, but they have much more difficulty recalling pictorial or visual information, particularly with only a brief exposure.
# Rote
199
Nonverbal Functioning
#
Perceptual visual deficits are often present in NLD children. They can perform simple motor tasks within normal limits but have difficulty with complex tasks that involve both thought and motor activity. They work well with established routines, but have noticeable problems when presented with new situations or novel material.
Non-verbal problem solving, concept formation and

hypothesis testing are other problem areas.
Deficits in dealing with cause-effect relationships, as well as the appreciation of incongruities and
adapting to novel and otherwise complex situations,

can be present.
In these situations NLD students tend to rely on over-learned behaviors.

Academic Functioning in NLD

#
Children develop phonics skills slowly but once developed they do well with the mechanical aspects of reading. Word decoding and spelling come easily as does memory for rote material. NLD children may have early motor and motor planning difficulties with tasks such as handwriting, cutting with scissors or tying shoelaces, but once these skills are mastered, writing fluency is not an issue.
202
Persistent academic difficulties may be present with reading comprehension, computational mathematics, science and with mathematics that is spatially oriented, such as geometry. Sometimes an NLD child who has difficulty attending to visual details may make procedural errors. For example, she may have mastered basic math facts but may not recall the fact when needed in a specific situation, or she may not recall the order of operations when computing a long division problem. The child may misread operational signs and may misalign numbers in columnar operations. KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN 203
Social-Emotional Functioning
#
Social relationships are a significant concern for NLD children. They may appear confused and may misinterpret body language and/or tone of voice. They do not perceive subtle cues in the environment, such as judging when an incident or reaction has gone far enough, or the limits of personal 'space.' These are all social skills that are normally grasped intuitively through observation, not directly taught.
Emotional development can be problematic for NLD children.
They
are
particularly
inclined
toward
the
development of internalizing symptoms such as depression, withdrawal, and anxiety.
NLD
children
can
experience
feelings
of
hopelessness, which can stem from being picked on

for certain circumstances.
Dimensions of language in NLD

Language structure / form (phonology, morphology and syntax)
#
Intact and age appropriate; content (semantics) its status is less clear; children may exhibit large and sophisticated vocabularies; but may not fully understand them. There is little meaningful content that is conveyed in their discourse (Rourke, 1996). This phenomenon has been described as cocktail party language.
206
Difficulties incomprehension becomes more apparent as the child grows older, and conversational interaction begins to demand the ability to employ contextual cues. In addition, appreciation of humor, irony, idioms or metaphor requires a skillful manipulation of literal and non-literal meanings.
This requires an elaborated semantic network that allow for a word to be connected with a variety of concepts.
With only a superficial understanding of language, the child with NLD is unlikely to appreciate figurative language or abstract meaning. Bishop (1998) cites the e.g. of a child who was told to watch your hands when using scissors and proceeded to stare at his fingers.
One explanation for relatively superficial semantic knowledge is the over reliance placed on learning through auditory and verbal means. Perhaps many of the words are fast mapped rather than fully understood.
208
Pragmatics refers to appropriate social use of language and includes the ability to:
#
Generate language to accomplish a wide variety of specific social purposes (e.g. requesting objects / information, commenting, greeting etc.) Manage conversation successfully (e.g. initiating interactions, introducing topics, taking turns, maintaining and building on topics, recognizing and repairing conversational breakdowns, etc.).
209
It is reported to be seriously impaired in children with NLD.

Their discourse / conversational management abilities are often rambling, marked by minimal structure, organization and cohesion; it tends to be tangential repetitive, monotonous and straight forward nature, containing little conceptual content.
Verbalizations are often loose and characterized by intrusions, embellishments and confabulations (Rourke and Tsatsanis, 1996).
Other pragmatic difficulties

Frequent use of stereotyped expressions like by the way or actually, inability to read or use facial expressions or tone of voice,
difficulty in using gestures to express feelings,

inappropriate speech prosody resulting in lack of affective modulation in language, and abrupt topic shifts.
211
Rourkes NLD syndrome is not yet listed as a diagnostic category in standard taxonomies of diseases and developmental disorders such as the International Classification of diseases (ICD-10).
At least in terms of speech and language symptomatology, the descriptions of NLD are similar with a variety of conditions like semantic pragmatic disorder, pragmatic language impairment, high functioning autism, Aspergers syndrome and others. What is described in educational terms as nonverbal LD may be what we describe in speech language terms as pragmatic language impairment.
Assessment
Test of Pragmatic skills
#
Quantify pragmatic skills in relation to developmental norms rather than focusing on qualitative abnormalities in communication. To evaluate such pragmatic features which typify the population with NLD (e.g. verbosity, inappropriate content, etc.), its important to assess behaviors that are difficult to elicit in test situations and that may be rare, but salient, in occurrence.
Dorothy Bishop (1998) developed such a tool called as the childrens communication checklist (CCC).
It is a 70 item checklist that may be completed by

parents / caregivers / service providers.
The respondent is asked to rate statements on 9 dimensions of communication, 5 of which focus on
aspects
of
pragmatic
communication
that
are
reported as clinically significant.

i. e. inappropriate initiations, difficulties with coherence, stereotyped conversation, difficulties in using conversational context, and difficulties in establishing conversational rapport. e.g. of the items include Talks repetitively about things that no one is interested in and it is sometimes hard to make sense of what he is saying because it seems illogical or disconnected. CCC evaluates exactly the type of pragmatic language errors that have been attributed to NLD.
215
Literacy and LD
Literacy is a process that begins well
before the elementary grades and continues

throughout adulthood.
It is no longer perceived as simply a cognitive skill but as a complex and active
process with cognitive, social, linguistic and

psychological aspects (Teale and Sulzby, 1989).
It involves the ability to read and write, speak, listen, view and think (Cooper, 1997).
Children learn to develop these abilities through

real opportunities and support provided by experienced individuals.
217
Spelling and reading development interact leading to increased proficiency in each ability.
#
Spelling and reading progress through three stages:
1. Logographic
2. Alphabetic
3. Orthographic
218
Delayed development in logographic stage

#
A delay in development prior to the logographic
stage would interfere with emerging symbolic skills.
It interferes with the childs recognition of printed words as symbols for concepts or objects.
219
Arrested
development
here
might
indicate
problem in acquiring metalinguistic awareness of the referents for sentence and words.
Failure
to acquire the logographic strategy is
suspected when words with striking visual features are not recognized more quickly than those with unremarkable features.
220
Delay in the alphabetic stage

Although reading skills may continue
to increase gradually through over-application of

the logographic strategy, the beginning reader who continues to focus attention on picture cues and memory will have difficulty moving into the alphabetic stage.
221
Frith
(1985) explained that a childs difficulty in grasping and applying the alphabetic principle will become obvious when he/she attempts to print, sound out, or blend sounds when reading (decoding) unfamiliar words.
Overreliance
on the logographic principle will inhibit acquisition of fluent, flexible phonic reading.
children who present with poor phonological and spelling-to-sound decoding will have classic developmental dyslexia.
Those
Delayed development in orthographic stage

Problems
that arise during transition from the
alphabetic to the orthographic strategy result from overreliance on the alphabetic principle.
Automaticity
which is very important for decoding is
not achieved and the reader remains glued to print.
223
Because
logographic
skills
remain
intact, the reader relies on phoneme-grapheme

rules disregards interword structure, and tends to regularize the spelling of irregularly spelled
word, for e.g. spelling cough as coff.
224
Common literacy problems experienced by students

As
literacy is often interconnected with acquisition
of language, students who exhibit difficulties with
element of the language system often exhibit related

problems in other areas of literacy.
common characteristic of students with disabilities
is language deficiency, which may present itself as
problems with letters and sounds, limited vocabulary

(both receptive and expressive) and numerous
225
weaknesses in oral and written expression.

Another
difficulty area for students with disabilities is perceptual problems-recognizing, discriminating and interpreting visual and auditory stimuli (Salend, 2001) and problems with larger and small motor tasks (Silvia, McGee and Williams, 1985).
Clearly
these areas of difficulty can jeopardize effective reading and writing skills, which combine auditory, visual, motor and conceptual process.
addition these children also have problems with attention, memory and organization (Bay and Bryan, 1992) all of which affect both reading and writing.
In
Dissertations done at AIISH Logographic reading skills in children-Mythra JagadishD.no. 218 (1991). Objective:
1. 2. 3. 4.
To determine whether pre-school skills children demonstrate logographic reading skills. To determine whether logographic skills are seen only in 1 of the age groups. To determine whether the reading skills of children show a developmental trend. Can some features in words be identified which seem to facilitate logographic reading.
Method:
Subjects: 15 pre-school children in 3 groups each with age range 2-3.6 yrs, 3.6-4.6 (LKG) and 4.6-5.6(UKG).
Materials: a set of 47 advertisements were the test

items. Format: picture + word logographic word word in changed format with visual distracters
Results:
Children
demonstrate logographic reading skills.
There
are not pertained rigidity to any 1 of the 3
age groups
The
nature of response and the kind of differences
among the 3 groups strongly indicate developmental trend

No
specific features of LD could be identified.
229
A tool for screening children with writing difficulties Jayashree Shanbal --no. 476 (2003). Reading readiness test in Kannada-its development and standardization -Devika Devi- no. 57 (1978). Test for writing for children in Hindi- Kiran J --no. 282 (1994). Descriptive analysis of the sequential progression of English reading skills among Indian children- Monika Loomba--no. 309 (1995).
Variables affecting rapid reading : an experimental study- Priya Kurian.--no.336, (1996).
Orthographic
effects
on
naming
speed
and
accuracy of reading- Roopa Rao --no.288 (1994).
Reading acquisition in malayalam: a profile of the secondary grades.-Seetha.L --no 466, (2002).
Checklist for screening language based Reading disabilties in children- Swaroopa --no 445, (2001). KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN
231
Thesis done at AIISH

A
framework for testing Kannada reading on the
automaticity, rules of orthography and sequential
processing- G.Purushotham -- Th.no. 9, (1986).
Reading
acquisition profile in Kannada- K.S.Prema ---
Th.no. 21 (1997).
Fine-grained
auditory discrimination on normal
children and LD- Swapna.N ---Th.no 27, (2004).

233
234
Dyslexics seem to be what I call super alert. We are like wild animals and are taking it everything all the time. We notice every sound, every movement and every action the teacher makes. Our brains are like glass houses where everything in the outside world is seen and heard. The rest of you live in one room, or part of your brain, at a time and can decide what you want to concentrate on. And many of you have the audacity to try to and make us like you. We are happy to be like us and we frequently grow up to be the higher achievers.
- Dawn Matthews
235
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239
Thank you
240

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LEARNING DISABILITY (LD)

Characteristics, Assessment and Diagnosis

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN SLP

Definition of Learning Disabilities:

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

Neurological dysfunction or brain impairment:

neurological learning disability, meaning that

Uneven growth pattern:

mental abilities. Examination of profiles of

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

behavioral disturbance and not from mental

Discrepancy between achievement and potentiality

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

educationally significant discrepancy between their

learning processes, which may or may not be

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

Emergence of Learning Disabilities field Early development

The first systematic clinical studies of specific

reading disability were reported in 1917 by

suddenly lost the ability to read while other

areas of mental functioning remained intact. It

severe reading problems which was attributed to

perceptual and perceptual motor problems (behavioral cognitive difficulties).

and Strauss were influenced heavily

wounds during World War I).

observed were: inability to

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

THE STRAUSS SYNDROME:

The term brain injured child is a cause-oriented or

The term can be associated with other conditions,

The term was first suggested by Kirk (1963).

Children who had sensory handicaps/learning failure caused by emotional disturbance/experience

deprivation were excluded from the LD group.

related reading Disorders (1969)- 15.0%

Kass and Myklebust (1969)- 3.0 to 5.0% Meir (1971)- 15%

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

are many causes for the problems.

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

Most researchers believe that LD is related

Classification of LD: Kirk and Gallagher (1989)

Lang. disorder Perceptual disorders

Spelling d/s Handwriting d/s

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

(syndromes) among children and adolescents with LD:

Primary presenting syndrome is a language disorder syndrome:

(dysnomia) and speech discrimination problems

Characterized by articulatory, writing and drawing

actions). Prevalence among LD: 10% - 40%.

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

Disorders of memory and thinking

Oral language difficulties

Attention disorders and LD

LD children-no deficit ADHD-made more errors

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

are comparable at the encoding stage of word

decoding process than did normal readers.

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

Many accounts of poor recognition of quickly presented information by LD children have

been attributed to attention deficits.

That the residual differences are not great

The exact nature of problems with STM is somewhat