The greatest challenge would for the student to share with you the disability, it takes a certain amount of trust on the student's part. Then most importantly you need for the student to develop confidence, even students without learning disabilities can at times lack confidence. Trust and confidence are key to the success of students with learning disabilities. I have personal experience with my youngest son, who's birthday fell at the end of July which made him a young kindergartner. He developed severe asthma at the age of 5 and received treatment at Duke Children's Hospital, from childhood until he was an adult. He missed many days of school and needed IEP. It was a total win for him, he is now excelling in his junior year of college. I am very grateful for these types of programs that help people of any age reach their total potential.
Identifing the students with disabilities is very difficult, especially when students shy away when they feel they cannot keep up with the rest of the class.
I've taken time after class to ascertain what the issue is an implement a strategy going forward. Fortunately, I've had students come to me. It would be quite frustrating otherwise. In the beginning of my class, I do ask if there are certain styles of teaching or format that they have experienced that was helpful e.g. groups, divided curriculum in smaller bites etc. This allows a student with a learning disability to come forward but not be labled as having a problem as the whole class if brought into this discussion.
Apply stategy, figure out main problem, then focus on special technique.
The greatest challenge for me when I had the opportunity to work with students who had dyslexia was keeping the appropriate amount of patience. it is necessary to really understand in what areas of learning they lack to be able to come up with ways to make learning easy.
I would say the greatest challenge is learning the disability and understanding that person on an individual basis. Although a person has a specific disability, someone with the the same disability may have it more severely. So it is important to make sure to learn the best way to help that specific student.
I have seen student's that clearly are learning disabled. The problem lies where the student has never been evaluated and the student is unaware of their need for evaluation for a learning disability.
I would say the greatest challenge is when a student doesn't tell you that they have a learning disability and they continue to do poorly in your class and no matter what you do it doesn't seem to work because you don't know what the disability is. It is a challenge to figure out how to help this student suceed.
The biggest problem while working with students with a learning disability would be to truly understand the challenges of the student.
Shantel,
Thank you for pointing out that having a learning difficulty is not the same as being less intelligent. These students can & do learn, they just may learn differenty from the norm.
Dr. Ryan Meers
I find the hardest issue dealing with students that have learning disabilities is also keeping a pace for the other students that make them feel that I am not taking too much time with one particular student.
The greatest challege to working with students with learning disabilities is understanding what the disability is and how to get the proper teaching tools for the individual.
The biggest challenge for any instructor is they do not know that the student has a learning problem. My experience is that academics does not inform me about the student with a learning problem so, I have to find this out after the class has started and probably will not really find out until the first set of grades are done. As the instructor I can ask questions but until the student makes the first step nothing can be done. So now I have to play catch up with the student to bring them up to speed. Often it is a big challenge on how to help. I will give the student learning aids pertaining to the lesson, and if needed be I let them use a tape recorder to tape the lecture.
I agree that getting students to open up can be quite challenging, but another great challenge to learning disabilities is trying to accomodate students once you have identified the learning disability. For example, providing students with additional time is not always possible especially in situations where time is part of the skill/test. We must be sensititve yet realistic and reasonable on what types of accomodations to provide for the students which can be a real challenging.
The greatest challenge to working with students with learning disabilities is getting them to address it as a disability. Alot of students are embarassed to share with me that they have a learning disability so that additional support can be provided.
Shanna,
Yes, unfortunately when students are not feeling successful or frustrated the easiest thing for them to do is to simply skip class which only makes things worse.
Dr. Ryan Meers
It takes more time to help those students. Especially it is challenging when we don’t have a lot time. But we need to remember that having a learning disability is not equal to being less intelligent. Get to know the student and use that revenue to gear instruction to how the student best learns
One of my classmates in college had learning disabilities. Whatever she reads she can retain and retrieve at any time. But by any other way of learning style she becomes very disoriented and lost. It is even difficult for her to figure out “right or leftâ€.
Setting aside regular tutoring sessions for those students will help the instructor make the most of their time.
Could not agree more. I heard through the grapevine that one of my former students had dyslexia. There was nothing I could do until they approached me, which they never did, for whatever reason. I couldnt do a thing as I watched this student flounder in class
To keep the student focused on their own class work while other students are doing other tasks. Sometimes a student that has issues will want to go faster to keep up. My class activities are to be at what a student can get done not speed. They might even skip steps or test steps just to finish.
From my years of having been a Disability Services Coordinator, I would say facilitating the student's successful assimilation into the traditional classroom with a feeling of confidence and self-efficacy. Identifying the most effective assistive technology and academic interventions is fairly easy compared to helping the student to emotionally and psychologically be prepared and comfortable in this environment.
