“Early Detection of Learning Disabilities – The Situation Today”.

Lalitha Ramanujan

Alpha to Omega Learning Centre

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Early Intervention benefits :

• The child

• The family

• The society

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• Some children differ in their pattern of development in

• Language • Thinking skills• Social skills• Behaviors and motor abilities• These later often fall under the

“ at risk or high risk category”.

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Prevention is better than cure

Who & Why?

• A percentage who do not receive

adequate stimulation or find learning

to accomplish daily life activities or

pre-skills for academics, difficult.

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Issues in identification

• Individuals differ in their developmental

patterns.

• Help or not help the at risk child.

• Labeling has more disadvantages than

advantages.

• The biological and environmental factors

that influence the development. 5

Areas

• Pre academic readiness• Intelligence • Language • Perceptual• Motor • Social-emotional • Physical-sensory

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• The focus is on what is, not there in the

child’s content and also improve his

cognitive function.

• The aim is to create a foundation for

further learning and develop cognitive,

social, and specific skills that are

prerequisites for school work.

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• “At risk or high risk category”

often land as learning disabled in

higher grades in school.

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• “Prevention is better than cure”.

• The question is if the detection is

early, is the cure cent percent?

• Why should we have early

intervention?

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Skills needed to rule out LD.

• Basic concepts

• Adaptive behaviors for daily living

• Primary cognitive behaviors

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Basic concepts

• Color• Shape• Size• Orientation in space and related concepts• Number and quantity• Time• Cause and effect relationships• Feelings and moods• The human body

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Adaptive behaviours for daily living

• Motor skills • Dressing• Personal grooming and physical self-care• Eating and table manners• Independence and helping in-home

activities• General knowledge about the immediately

experienced world

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Primary cognitive behaviours

Attending to stimuli

Focusing

Imitative behavior

Symbolic play

Question and answer responses

Initiatory\adaptive play.

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The four stages of emerging cognitive function – Prof. Reuven Feuerstein

1. Lack of function

2. Function is there – but not expressed,

3. The child has the function but it is expressed in a deficit manner-emerging

4. Function present – he can remember – but fragile when complexity increases and varies day to day.

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Early Intervention benefits are

• Improves intelligence• Brings in developmental enhancement in

physical, cognitive, language, social and self esteem

• Prevents secondary learning problems• Removes family stress and anxiety• Creates an enriched environment to

promote independency and self concept.

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The current need of the day

• The young child should be placed in the

natural setting to be with his peers.

• Individualized teaching plan to meet the

needs of the child

• Assessment should be carried out informally

and in the natural environments

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The Need

• Have child initiated activities.

• Ample opportunities to know about

the child’s interest, motivation and

his preference for activities.

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Our focus - to reduce the gap

Activities to enhance• Motor development – gross and fine motor,

body activities

• Auditory processing – listening to sounds, auditory discrimination, memory

• Visual processing – perception, memory

• Tactile processing18

• Teach the parent the skills to prevent any gaps in development.

• Train the mediating adult the skills to enhance cognitive skills.

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Perceptual Modality

• - shows that all of us have different ways to learn.

• “If they cannot learn the way we teach, can we teach the way they learn?”

Kathleen Hickey

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• The mediation is the one that

helps to develop the

flexibility and plasticity for

adaptation to change.

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• What makes the innate and acquired schemata flexible, plastic and modifiable?

• It is the human environment interaction.

• The answer is

Mediated Learning Experience

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The mediator’s role ---

• select • organize • set a schedule • be aware of when and in what amount to

change the frequency, saliency and amplitude.

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The mediator’s goal

• Focus attention• Make transcendence• Activate and enhance prior knowledge• Bring in a cognitive change

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Mediated Learning Experience

is the vitamin

for cognitive development.

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Who will benefit?

1. Children or those who need to develop or

improve in the basic content and concepts

to function effectively in their learning

environment.

2. Prevent or overcome at risk factors

3. Establish those functions which the child

missed due to lack of appropriate

mediation.

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Targets

Learners who need • development and or acceleration

• Prevent dysfunction or any delay

• Restore or establish functions that are not acquired at the right time.

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• Current trend ---

LD is on a rampage in recognition.

• The cause can be exogenous –

environment

• or endogenous – with the child.28

Didactic

Cog. Map

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• It can also be due to:• Culture• Societal values on intelligence and its

functions• Acceptance by parents• Commitment• Parents role in mediation

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Causes• Child lacks exposure from family and

culture• Result from psychological or and

emotional disturbance• The effect of the above inadequacies

could be: ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINANTS

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• Immigration.

• Poverty

• Ideology

• Parent child relationship—

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Endogenous condition

• Autism \ ASD• Constitutional factors – hypo or hyper• Down syndrome• Emotional disorders

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• MLE is open – age, stage of

development should not be an

issue.

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• Rich get rich Poor get poorer

• Belief - modifiability Restricted

environment

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