Ten years ago, only a few thousand children in the Chicago public schools were identified as having a learning disability. Today that number has jumped to 15,000–3 percent of the total enrollment.
Research into the relatively new field of learning disabilities has contributed to correct diagnoses. The passage of Public Law 94-142, the Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, has led to a full formulation of public school programs nationwide guaranteeing a learning-disabled child a free and appropriate education.
Chicago was among the first school districts in the country to have a learning disabilities program, long before passage of 94-142 (as it is commonly referred to), said Madeleine Johnson, director of the Bureau of Learning Disabilities for the Chicago Board of Education.
”Programs started here in the late `50s,” she said. ”And the term
`learning disabled` was coined here in 1963. It used to be called brain-injured.”
A pioneer in the learning disabilities program was Doris Johnson, now chairman of the learning disabilities department at Northwestern University. She started with six classes of 36 students. Today there are 900 teachers and at least one learning disability class in every public school in Chicago, kindergarten through high school, including bilingual programs.
”We have a unique approach,” Madeleine Johnson said. ”Our teachers are state-certified in learning disabilities and in a separate subject. We feel this approach helps teachers more appropriately teach the learning disabled.” Parents often will notice that their child is having difficulty expressing thoughts and ideas or receiving information before he enters school. Other children`s problems are noticed by their teachers only after they start school and attempt writing and math tasks.
In either situation, the child`s case is reviewed by a team composed of his parents, teachers, counselors, consulting physicians, social workers, school nurse, speech and language therapist and vision and hearing
specialists.
He is then diagnosed as having a moderate or severe learning disability. Those with moderate learning disabilities are mainstreamed for the majority of their classes but attend special classes each day to deal with their disorder. Teachers and teachers` aides also give extra attention to a moderately learning-disabled child in his regular classrooms. The severely learning-disabled attend strictly self-contained classes; some students are
mainstreamed gradually.
Singling out moderately learning-disabled students for special attention in regular classrooms can cause some stigma, Madeleine Johnson said. But ”a student`s self-concept is that he wants to be good at everything, so he responds when a teacher is sincere about helping him.”
In classes for moderate and severely disabled students, each child receives a program structured to his needs, working with material used in regular classes to ease the transition into regular classes. Classes usually number no more than 10 and performance frequently is reassessed, Johnson said. Severely disabled students also are reviewed yearly.
The learning-disabled classroom differs greatly from the traditional teacher-in-front-of-the-room arrangement. ”Two kids may be at the easel drawing, others may be working quietly on constructive games and a few others may be doing reading or math assignments,” said Perniece Pugh, a teacher of severely disabled students at Louisa May Alcott School, 2625 N. Orchard St.
Pugh rotates her attention from one child to the next, all of whom work on tightly structured assignments, she said. Although some assignments are more fun than others, none are considered ”play time.”
Because many learning disabled students experience difficulty in receiving information, it often must be repeated over and over to lock it into the memory. Pugh said summer school is especially helpful because it reinforces learning skills year-round.
Learning disabilities, however, cannot be ”cured.” Coping and compensating are the only routes to academic achievement. Some children respond to mental ”tricks,” such as mnemonics, the use of formulas to help the memory, to skirt problem areas. Others must avoid areas of difficulty altogether, such as learning information aurally when written directions cannot be understood, and vice versa.
Although typical learning-disabled children are of average or above-average intelligence, Johnson noted, their impairment almost always causes them to have a bad self-image, and, hence, problems in adjusting socially. To that end, the learning disabilities program includes a ”charm school approach.”
”They`re taught to `put it together,` ” she said. Students are taught how to dress, apply makeup and conduct themselves gracefully.
Despite its good intentions, not everyone is satisfied with the Chicago public school learning-disability program. ”The problem is so immense, what with bad home learning environments and lack of home support, that problems feed on each other,” said a university professor.
”Regardless of public school excellence, some children need a private setting to do well,” the professor added. ”Private schools are more experimental and are less restricted by rules and regulations.”
Mary Cotter, past president of the Illinois Association for Children with Learning Disabilities and current national board member, said that ”many good programs” have come out of 94-142, but said she is concerned that parents are not being encouraged enough to participate in school decisions about their children.
”Before 94-142, teachers used to tell kids (struggling with a learning disability), `when you`re 16 you can drop out.` ” That doesn`t happen anymore, she said, but without a holistic approach–student, teacher and parent involvement–children still are having a difficult time.
”The law is written every step of the way for parent participation,”
Cotter said. ”But more mothers are working and there are fewer parents who are willing to spare the time. Parents have to stay on top of their child`s progress. Bureaucracy being what it is, you can`t afford to take a wait-and-see attitude. I`ve been called overreactive, but if we parents won`t get involved, who will?”
Cotter chided the school system for not making knowledge of the association more available. ”For 15 years we`ve been sending them
literature,” she said. ”Parents` cooperation and knowledge can make all the difference.”
