Learning disability or not?
In one of the last classes I taught I had fill in the blank quizzes. I noticed that one of the students had problems writing down the answers, for example: the collecting duct was writen as ....the coletin dut...or the bones was writen as ....the bomess
At the beggining I tought it was just mispelling of the words but then 95% of answers in 12 quizzes were like that. How do you approach this student, you do not say anything or do you refer them to somebody whithin the institution you are teaching?
I have a different story that resulted in the same question, "Learning disability or not?"
Recently in a senior BFA portfolio class, a student who like all students who take this final class, was feeling the pressure and in an effort to ask for more time, the student told me that he suffered from Dyslexia. I do not doubt this is true, but the student showed no signs of the "big three" Ability, Experience and Motivation. The student also didn't seem to have an IEP or Self-advocacy plan from the past.
I feel guilty and have spent a lot of extra one-on-one time with the student, but it is hard to help this student who appears to have slipped through the cracks of public education and community college experiences.
As with all other students during class, I would ask the student questions to check for their understanding of the topics. There is a point at the end of a major section where I ask each individual if they understand the topic and sometimes problems conceptualizing come out here. I find, though, that literacy issue may not always translate into poor performance where the course is concerned, and it isn't always appropriate to pry otherwise into a student's business if they don't voluntarily come forward with their problem. They know what their issues are but, for whatever reason, may not want you to know.
I definitely think that is an example of a learning disability. I do think they would benefit from services within the institution. If/when possible it might be better to give multiple choice or matching to help alleviate the problem. Matching could include twice as many or more options to maintain the difficulty of the test.
