Cognitive & Social Strategies for Coping with Learning Disabilities
Teresa R. McGrath & Patrick A. Belden
Florida Gulf Coast University
EDF 6215 Learning Principles
Dr. Mike Tyler
Abstract
Having a learning disability can be a daunting, life-long challenge. One which many people overcome through compensation techniques, but others struggle all their lives with little education, underemployment and poor life choices. The preponderance of evidence shows that successful people with learning disabilities are metacognitively aware of their limitations, having developed techniques for coping with the frustration and depression often associated with LD. Understanding one’s limitation appears to be paramount in conquering this cognitively, psychologically and emotionally crippling disorder.
Building an understanding of one’s learning disability leads the individual to a role of self-advocacy: the first step in successful coping. Whether people find themselves in a situation as students, employees or parents, self-advocacy remains essential. Often, parents, teachers and service providers feel a responsibility for an individual and will fight battles in his/her name. These well-meaning actions can only be labeled as interference in the success plan of the individual.
Awareness of the correlation of depression and anxiety disorder with learning disabilities can prepare persons with LD to better deal with these distressing occurrences. Social implications of LD can also be unsettling; telling someone that filing out an application is beyond one’s ability does not bode well for employment. Informing a close friend of reading difficulties can be humiliating and potentially devastating.
LD affects all aspects of a person’s life, yet learning how to learn within the limitations of a specific learning disability can set up a life-long pattern of success. Self-advocacy and cognitive coping strategies will lead to a life of satisfaction in the arenas of education, employment and family.
Life in these modern times remains built around the written word. A person can not spend much of a day without needing to read and or write some form of communication. Furthermore, in this technological surge toward the information age, people need to read and write to keep pace with society. Though adult illiteracy refuses to be banished, some individuals have the intelligence and the schooling to read and write, yet their brains seem to be cross-wired, leaving them unable to communicate with the written word. These people have a learning disability (LD). "By definition, students with learning disabilities do not perform to their potential" (Reiff, Ginsberg, & Gerber, 1995). These people must be armed with the cognitive and social tools to bring their performance level up to their potential, to become successful in life.
A comprehensive definition of learning disability can be found on the Web Page for the office of special education at Curry College, Virginia. This school describes individuals with learning disabilities as people:
Who have a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which disorder may manifest itself in imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations. Such disorders include such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. (Llyod, 1998. P. 1).
Doctoral Student Cheryl Ziegert and Associate Professor Stephen W. Smith, both from the University of Florida’s Department of Special Education, spell out some distressing statistics that underline the difficulties that adults with learning disabilities face trying to maintain a balance between their limitations and their potential to learn and succeed. Their article entitled Adults with Learning Disabilities: Learning from Their Success, details that according to the "National Longitudinal Transition Study, one year after high school, most individuals with learning disabilities remain unemployed or underemployed with 70 to 80 percent living at home with parents" (1997). Life adjustment skills often elude the learning disabled because of weak cognitive processes and a lack of systemic problem-solving techniques (Roffman, Herzog & Wershba-Gershon, 1994). Hoy, Gregg and Wisenbaker write of the social issues faced by individuals with learning disabilities, equating poor social skills to a low self-concept that leads to social alienation and isolation. These authors also agree that a lack of goals and vocational aptitudes leave these people operating from crisis to crisis (1997). A learning disability is a risk factor that increases the likelihood of poor life-adjustment skills, lacking social graces and inadequate workplace readiness (Morrison & Cosden, 1997). The lion’s share of publicity concerning learning disabilities remains negative, linking LD to school disruption, prison enrollment, educational funding problems and problems of providing special accommodations (Antrim, 1997). Therefore, the public’s perception of the learning disabled is most certainly negatively skewed and incorrect.
During the years of kindergarten through high school, parents, educators, guidance counselors and LD specialist lead the LD student through their education process. Each Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meeting becomes more populated and more removed from the student’s control. "Despite their importance, self-advocacy skills are rarely taught in high school" (Brinckerhoff, 1994. P. 1). Then, comes post-secondary education, where service providers cannot discuss academic progress with parents, and professors with hundreds of students cannot afford the time to individualize learning plans. Statistics show that LD students are the fastest growing group of individuals with disabilities on college campuses. "The prevalence of LD among full-time college freshman increased tenfold between 1978 and 1985" (Beers & Goldstein, 1994. P.1). With no prior knowledge or training in self-advocacy, the student must self-disclose, often for the first time, to the office of service to students with disabilities, and to their professors. In post-secondary education as well as in the employment world, it is the individual’s responsibility to know when to self-disclose and when to ask for accommodations (Roffman, Herzog, et al., 1994). A large part of the problem of under-prepared in-coming freshmen stems from legislation originally designed to help these students. P.L. 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, supports a strong role for parents in the decision making process in both the primary and secondary education of the child. However, in the early 1990s, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) became Public Law 101-476; this legislation mandates that students become proactive participants in their own education process (Brinckerhoff, 1994).
Solution
Especially true for college service providers and instructors, education on teaching LD students a systemic and generalized approach to learning how to learn has become a must. As part of an integrated system of success planning, self-advocacy must be taught to incoming freshmen as early as possible. Dr. Loring C. Brinckerhoff, the director of LD support services and a member of the special education faculty at Boston University defines self-advocacy as, "the ability to recognize and meet the needs specific to one’s learning disability without compromising the dignity of oneself or others" (1994, p. 2). The necessary leap from having well-meaning parents go to bat for students with learning disabilities to self-advocacy is difficult for college freshman still reeling from the impact of so many additional responsibilities from those of high school days.
Though learning disabilities can never be cured, cognitive strategies shared by successful adults with learning disabilities can be, and should be taught and learned. Such smashingly successful people as, Winston Churchill, Cher, Whoppi Goldberg, and Greg Louganis all developed coping skills and cognitive strategies to ensure they could perform close to their potential (Brinckerhoff, 1994). People with learning disabilities need to completely understand their limitations, know their needs, learn their rights by law, and possess the ability and self-efficacy to ask for accommodations when necessary. Couple this with a determination to succeed and an integrated curriculum, and a prescription for success emerges. As with any material to be learned, whether it is college physics or the procedure for assembling a widget, the learner’s attitude toward herself and the content will play a role in her success. An integrated approach will ensure the highest degree of success for the largest number of learners (Brinckerhoff). Instructional design for students with disabilities should include varied modalities and can rely heavily, though not solely, on computer-mediated instruction (Kitz & Thorpe, 1995). In dealing with the instructional design of software for students with learning disabilities, research shows, "the most essential features … are mastery components, frequent quizzes, immediate feedback and review units" (Kitz & Thorpe). Educators need to shift their thinking from remediation to compensation when dealing with an LD student (Reiff, Ginsberg, & Gerber, 1995). Computers, a multi-modality delivery system, can help LD students tremendously. An example would be the LD assistive software that reads a text out loud while it highlights each sentence in one color and each word in another. This software can afford a student with a learning disability an autonomy never experienced prior to that point. This student can now excel in areas that were not before possible: grammar, psychology, literature, foreign language and history. Educators applaud this technology and its use in many subject areas. However, a caveat is necessary here. Educators have the ethical obligation not to allow LD students to use technology for academic success that cannot be carried into, and relied on in, the career the student is preparing to enter. In Davis v. Southern Community College, the court ruled that some disabilities preclude a person’s right to accommodations based on public safety (Morrison & Cosden, 1997)). Educators and legislators need to find the balance that will allow students the least restrictive environment without jeopardizing academic standards and public safety.
According to Ziegert & Smith, 1997 and Gerber, Ginsberg & Reiff, 1992, highly successful adults with learning disabilities share several themes of self-regulation:
This holistic view to learning addresses both internal and external forces. The first three themes center on internally driven controls, while the last four are external manifestations. These themes serve as a framework for coping and cognitive strategies for students with learning disabilities. Integrated interventions should include teaching specific cognitive routines, such as strategic content learning (SCL) (Butler, 1995). This strategy, like so many other success plans for students with disabilities, relies on a system of metacognition, self-regulated learning, and independent strategy use.
Meanwhile, an entire population of students with learning disabilities is so intelligent that they may never be diagnosed as LD (Ferri, Gregg, & Heggoy, 1997). These gifted students disguise their learning disabilities through cognitive strategies and coping techniques. Students who are gifted and LD, like other LD students, need a holistic, integrated approach to learning (Ferri, Gregg, & Heggoy). Regardless of the LD student’s IQ, the level of education achieved by an LD student correlates to their life successes (Greenbaum, Graham, & Scales, 1996). As educators, we must help students with learning disabilities develop learning strategies, understand their learning disability and know their self-worth.
The experts agree that students with learning disabilities must understand their learning difficulty, know their limitations, develop a sense of themselves and their needs, and ask for help when necessary. Combine these tenets with hard work and determination and the student with a learning disability has the makings of a successful life. A learning disability is a life-long sentence to trying harder and working smarter. LD students must be taught early on in their academic careers that they can acquire the tools they will need to build their lives. Those tools must be readily available to these students as they enter post-secondary education. Just as higher education reduces the risk factor of suffering inappropriate life adjustments, a lack of higher education leaves the LD student with few viable employment opportunities. So, the LD student who a decade ago would have been told to go to work because college was not for him, is now, thankfully, showing up on campuses everywhere. If that student arrives with an empty cognitive toolbox, then it is our job as post-secondary educators to help him find those tools of cognitive strategies, self-advocacy, and self-esteem.
References:
Antrim, Debra, S. (1997). Newspaper coverage of learning disabilities. [5 pages] Education [online], 118. Available: http://www.elibrary.com/getdoc.cgi?…=&puburl=&querydocid=&dtype=&dinst=. (September 11, 1998)
Beers, Sue, R.-Goldstein, Gerald, et al. (1994). Nuero-psychological differences…. [20 pages]. Journal of Learning Disabilities [online], 30. Available: http://www.elibrary.com/getdoc.cgi?…=754078@library_e&dtype=0. (September 11, 1998)
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