Eight years ago, Karen Scholl took her family on a trip to Disneyland. Along with the suitcases and the suntan lotion, Scholl brought packets of homework prepared by her two sons` teachers so they wouldn`t fall behind in their school work while they were gone.
”We had a wonderful time,” Scholl said. ”My younger son was in 1st grade at the time, and he just wasn`t getting his homework done. I remember very vividly saying in the hotel one day that we weren`t going to go back to Disneyland until we got the work done. Six hours later we were still working on it, and it wasn`t done.”
That was Scholl`s first clue that her son, who is now 15, couldn`t read.
”When we got back from vacation I told his teacher the same thing, and three weeks later she came back to me and said `You`re right.` But no one could tell me why.”
The summer before her son entered 2nd grade was a difficult time for Scholl, who lives in Crystal Lake. She paints a picture of herself walking up and down the beach that summer, stopping other parents she knew, asking them how their children were doing in school.
”I`d ask them if (their children) could read. Everyone was doing fine, except for my son. I felt really desperate,” Scholl said.
Scholl knew her son to be bright and inquisitive. She was an avid reader, and the library had been the focus of their lives. She had spent time teaching him his letters by tracing them in sand and working in phonics books.
But testing subsequently revealed her son has a learning disability. Although his hearing is fine, he can`t always process what he hears.
”It`s like two wires,” Scholl said, pointing her two index fingers toward each other. ”Sometimes they connect, sometimes they don`t. When they connect, the message gets through beautifully. But when they don`t, he just can`t do it, and he can`t remember what he learned before, either. It`s very frustrating.”
Scholl said that while the school district was good about providing testing and educational services for her son, she needed more help than they could give. Thinking a support group might help, she advertised locally for parents who had children who were having difficulties in school to attend a meeting.
That first meeting, she said, drew ”a whole conglomeration of people.”
Meanwhile, she learned of the Association for Children with Learning Disabilities (ACLD), a national organization with both state and local chapters that recently changed its name to Learning Disabilities Association
(LDA).
Rather than reinvent the wheel, Scholl organized the group of parents who attended that first meeting into a local chapter of ACLD.
Today the chapter is known as LDA United Chapter, and it has become one of Illinois` most active chapters, drawing parents and educators from 22 school districts from points as far as Rockford, Joliet, Barrington and northern Illinois up to the Wisconsin border.
It also provides in-service training for teachers, and its regional programs frequently feature noted educational speakers.
”This is a dynamic group that we at the state level can depend on,”
said Connie Parr, president of the Learning Disabilities Association of Illinois (LDA/IL), which oversees 17 state LDA chapters. ”They`ve been very successful in letting people know what learning disabilities are. They have gotten publicity out that lets people knowour children are not retarded, but they`re capable of doing superior work if taught correctly.”
A learning disabled child is of average or higher intelligence but has problems in academic areas that can be attributed to a dysfunction in the central nervous system, said Pam Gilette, superintendent of the Northwest Suburban Special Education Organization in Mt. Prospect and a member of the LDA Illinois Professional Advisory Board.
Estimates of the number of American school children who have a learning disability range from 5 to 12 percent, depending on how school districts define the disorder.
According to the LDA, children with learning disabilities exhibit clusters of symptoms that vary in degree, including short attention span, poor memory, difficulty in following directions and poor reading ability.
Learning disabilities occur in many forms and require comprehensive professional testing for correct diagnosis and specialized teaching methods to ensure a child`s success.
But whatever the learning disability is, the overall effect it has on the child, his parents and the school system can be dramatic. And many parents of learning-disabled children speak of living with anger, frustration, despair, half-truths, broken dreams and torn self-esteem.
”It`s a roller-coaster ride,” Scholl said. ”You hang on and scream a lot, and when you`re at the top, you wonder when you`ll fall again.”
LDA provides a network of support, information and resources to help parents cope with the guilt, grief and isolation that can result when parents learn their child is learning disabled and then help them learn how to work with the school system to ensure appropriate education services.
”The child as everyone has envisioned him dies, and you have to accept this new child,” said Scholl. ”Parents can become real angry and aggressive toward the school and teachers who failed the child, but you have to put that anger aside and turn it into constructive and assertive behavior by saying this is what the problem is, and now what can we do about it. LDA is a vast storehouse of information because we`ve lived it.”
Since the chapter began eight years ago, Scholl has donated countless volunteer hours to the group, including two years as chapter president. She still serves on the local board, oversees the chapter`s information and referral services, raises money for the group`s scholarship fund and does phone counseling from home.
A frequent speaker, next month Scholl will address the topic of homework and the learning disabled student at the LDA/IL state conference in west suburban Oak Brook.
”Mention Karen`s name to anyone and they`ll know her in a minute,” LDA/ IL`s Parr said of Scholl`s work with the organization. ”Her drive has been her children, and she`s done marvelous work of setting the groundwork for the LDA United chapter.”
And last spring the chapter awarded its first Founder`s Award to Scholl to honor her efforts.
”Karen has kept breath and drive in this organization and she`s kept hope for parents,” said Jan Thietje, a past president of the LDA United chapter who now serves on the state board.
Jo Anne Fritz of West Dundee is one of many parents who has benefited from Scholl`s commitment to identifying and helping learning disabled students.
Four years ago she and her husband, Paul, both teachers, were mystified when their junior high-aged son began having difficulties in school.
”There was a negativism in him and we didn`t know where it was coming from. At first we thought it was just typical adolescent kinds of things, and we fell into the trap of telling him to try harder. We just didn`t understand,” Fritz said.
At the time, Fritz and Scholl were both teaching at the Crystal Lake Montessori School in Woodstock. As Fritz worried over her son`s school problems, Scholl suggested Fritz have him tested for learning disabilities.
Testing revealed her son has no auditory memory. Although he can read, write and do math, he doesn`t have the skills to cope with the lecture and note-taking format that predominated in his high school classes because he can`t remember what he hears.
But Fritz`s son, who recently graduated from high school, is a success story. Conferencing with his teachers on his learning disabilities coupled with teaching him strategies to compensate for it helped him succeed.
But, like many parents of learning disabled children, Fritz grieves over the damage done to his self-esteem because of a lack of understanding on what learning disabilities are.
”Some (parents and educators) are very much aware of learning disabilities, but there are a whole lot of others who think that a child`s failure to perform or succeed means he is not motivated, or lazy,” said Fritz. ”Karen led us in the direction we needed to go when I really didn`t know what that direction was. She recognized immediately that I was struggling and confused.”
Scholl has closely monitored her son`s education through the years in order to ensure his success. After 4th grade she pulled him out of public school because she found a Montessori program that would be better for him.
He has had years of academic tutoring and speech, physical and occupational therapy. And although school districts generally retest learning disabled students every three years, Scholl has it done privately every two years in order to continually refine his educational program.
She even started a junior-high program at the Montessori school when she realized how crucial the junior high years are to a child`s development. And today he attends high school at a private northwest suburban academy that Scholl said can better serve his needs.
Not all learning disabled children need intervention to the degree that Scholl`s son has received. But she does stress the importance of parents working with their school systems so their children receive appropriate educational services.
”There`s no quick fix,” she said. ”And if you believe you`ll cure it or it`ll go away, you set yourself up for heartache. A learning disability is something that continually needs to be addressed.”
Scholl`s continued involvement in LDA is in question right now because of injuries she sustained when a drunk driver hit her car in Crystal Lake. She broke her leg, ankle and ankle joint in several places.
Three operations and extensive physical therapy have helped repair her leg, but she now requires a wheelchair outside her home. She also had to resign from teaching the junior high program at the Montessori school.
Despite adjusting to a less-mobile lifestyle, Scholl remains optimistic about her future and she still tutors students in her home.
”This won`t stop me. I look at this as something bad that happened to me personally, but it will also be the start of something new for me.”
She is bothered, however, that the driver who hit her is still driving, and she may refocus her volunteer energies on getting drunk drivers off the road.
But her involvement with LDA will no doubt continue in some way.
”It`s not me who helped the group. It`s the group who helped me.”
