Kara Coval
76100m
Sauer
November 22, 1996

Literacy among Learning Disabled Individuals

In 'Literacy and Schooling in Subordinate Cultures: The Case of Black Americans,' John U. Ogbu discusses the literacy problem of subordinate minorities, particularly black Americans. He, like many other authors, does not mention an important minority group that also suffers literacy problems. This minority group is made up of people with learning disabilities. People may believe that these disabled people cannot achieve literacy but this is false. Most of the learning disabled are capable of achieving some degree of literacy, but unfortunately they do not receive the proper attention that they need in order to do so. Furthermore, specialists are not positive about what techniques are best in teaching these individuals. If these individuals with learning disabilities are given the attention they need from teachers who are patient and open-minded, they can develop literacy to a degree that will enable them to communicate with other people. To support why so much attention should be given to these students on an individual basis, I will discuss what degree of literacy learning disabled individuals can achieve, what teaching techniques that experts such as Dan D'Amelio, Karen A. Erickson et al, Jules C. Abrams, Christine Salisbury et al, and Linda McCormick et al believe are best, and why more research is needed in this area.

Are learning disabled children capable of learning? Educators, as a group, believe that these children can only learn to do very little academic work (D'Amelio, vii). In contrast, D'Amelio states 'if special methods are used, many severely retarded children can learn the fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic' (vii). He supports his statement from results of his teaching of severely retarded children. Out of nine students participating in academic work, six made substantial progress. This suggests that when special methods are used, these students are capable of learning academic skills even if at a low grade level. Erickson et al also disagrees with a majority of the educators by stating:

'The few studies that have investigated areas such as reading comprehension and generative writing appear to indicate that individuals with significant cognitive impairments can, and do, demonstrate higher level literacy competencies when provided with appropriate instruction, experiences, and opportunities' (25).

Both authors seem to agree that, if given the chance and the correct amount of attention, learning disabled individuals can achieve the necessary academic skills that are required to have some degree of literacy.

Even though the authors all agree that special teaching techniques need to be used in helping learning disabled children gain literacy skills, they do not agree on what method is the best to utilize in the classroom. Salisbury et al mentions that American Sign Language has been used successfully for some severely handicapped individuals (394). Sign Language enables these individuals who cannot write or speak to communicate with others. However, Salisbury also states that this method will only work on some candidates (396). In selecting candidates, chronological age and the amount of success in previous therapies and programs are important (396). If previous therapies have been proven successful in other forms of communication systems that more adequately meet the needs of the candidates, then it would not be appropriate to teach the individual sign language. Furthermore, in order for this method to be functional, the students must be able to use the sign language in all of their environments.

In addition, Erickson refers to several different teaching methods in her paper. She states, 'these [disabled] individuals need to be provided increased and supported opportunities to interact with print and other literate people' (6). When placed in various settings with various people, these individuals 'demonstrated the capacity to improve their understanding and use of print' (6). One program for individuals with autism was deemed an inefficient way to approach literacy instruction. The program was a word-based communication training program that involved matching printed words to referents. The children did learn words from this program, but it took a huge amount of time to accomplish it. One particular technique that Erickson discusses in great detail is facilitated communication which is a 'technique involving the use of physical and emotional support . . . to teach an individual to point in order to communicate' (13). There is no sense of acceptance for facilitated communication even though it is being used all over the world (13). The reason for doubting the validity of this method is because some of the autistic students required physical support to type messages which led to questions about who was actually creating the message, the autistic individual or the person supporting them (13). However, most studies do suggest individuals are able to generate output that is completely originated by the autistic individual (16). Erickson ends the discussion by stating the decision to use facilitated communication must be made on an individual basis (17). She also states ' training must not preclude other forms of literacy and communication training that may prove more appropriate' (17). A second successful method for teaching autistic individuals that Erickson discusses was performed by Oppenheim, a mother of an autistic child, and was deemed as prosperous. She used cards with responses written on them where the child had to choose the correct card by pointing to it (11). She used these types of cards for storybooks and to construct sentences. Oppenheim found that this method enabled autistic children to learn to read without difficulty (11). Erickson further discusses teaching techniques in children with cognitive impairments or mental retardation. Fading and prompting techniques were proven to be successful in teaching sight words to children with cognitive impairments. Prompting is allowing the individual to preview the correct response, and fading is giving a great amount of attention to a word and then fading a picture in and then out (18). Using word and picture fading, researchers determined the picture fading condition produced the most significant results (19). Pairing of sign language and printed words was another instructional strategy that proved to be helpful to mentally retarded individuals. Subjects improved more in the signing condition than the non-signing condition (19). Also, investigators determined the number of words learned, remembered, and recalled in the sign and word condition correlated with duration of instruction and not the level of intelligence (19). Another teaching strategy was the use of computers for teaching. In this study they compared one group of teacher-directed learning students with a group of computer-assisted learning students. The results to this study was that there was no difference between the two approaches (21). However, in both cases, the students made significant progress (21). Furthermore, group instruction instead of individual instruction has been considered with the teaching of mentally retarded students. Group instruction can be more efficient than individual instruction because greater opportunity for incidental learning occurs (22). This approach proved to be effective for some students, but not all (22). A major conclusion made by Erickson is that individual differences should be taken into account when designing instruction; and if a student is having difficulty learning a given format, it seems reasonable to try a different alternative.

Furthermore, D'Amelio states, 'let's move in those directions which produce the greatest yield per unit progress, recognizing that a terminal point in the learning is expected' (vi). He believes that several techniques need to be combined to produce the greatest yield of progress. One of the most important suggestions that he makes is the traditional teaching techniques must be broken down into smaller units in order to be an adequate method for teaching the learning disabled (vii). Furthermore, he also suggests that the teachers should recognize the limitations of the learning disabled students, and teach within these limitations (vi). This is in contrast to starting to teach and then giving up when they think the students cannot go any further. Lastly, learning disabled children cannot deal with symbolic material or manipulative demands until they have the necessary percerptual-motor skills (vii). Therefore, it is obvious that perceptual-motor skills are essential to the education of the learning disabled.

Unlike the preceding authors, Abrams does not suggest a method that would best help learning disabled individuals. However, he does make a suggestion about how to improve the training of the teachers. Abrams states 'a teacher who has a degree in special education . . . may have had only one course in the teaching of reading and knows very, very little about how to teach a child with a severe reading disability' (6). He is implying that a special education teacher should have considerable training in all disabilities. He also suggests when working with these children, it is important to learn something in various areas such as reading, oral language, behavioral management, learning problems, etc. (6).

Many of the authors believe that there has not been enough research or studies involving instructional strategies of literacy among the learning disabled population. McCormick and Elder state that there is not sufficient data to account for precisely what children learn when they acquire language or how they learn it (29). Erickson states 'there is a critical need for additional research that will enable clearer documentation of the true extent and nature of the difficulties and a better understanding of how to address those difficulties systematically' (30). She also suggests that researchers study not only individual performance, but also the contexts that support literacy learning for individuals with disabilities (32). Abrams goes even farther by stating specific areas that need to be studied. Some of these areas are the differences between articulation and developmental disorders; dialect and developmental disorders; and syntax and semantics, as well as learning more about child development, language development, etc. (7). The more research that is conducted the more prepared our educational systems will be to provide the disabled individuals with the appropriate attention and teaching techniques that will help them to achieve some degree of literacy.

Different methods proved to be successful with different types of learning disabilities. Erickson found several successful teaching methods for mentally retarded individuals. Fading and prompting techniques, especially picture fading, produced significant results. Furthermore, pairing sign language and printed words, and group instruction were two other methods that Erickson found prosperous. D'Amelio concluded that several techniques needed to be combined in order to be successful with mentally retarded children, but his most significant method was just simply breaking traditional techniques into smaller units. Furthermore, Salisbury also mentions that sign language produced favorable results with mentally retarded individuals. In addition to the methods for mentally retarded individuals, Erickson also found teaching methods for autistic individuals that produced favorable results. Facilitated communication where the autistic person is given support to communicate by pointing produced well developed literacy skills in many cases (Erickson, 13). The other method that produced a significant outcome was the use of cards with responses written on them for use in storybooks and developing sentences. With

all the methods that have been considered successful, it is important to realize that the methods used must be chosen on an individual basis. One method may work for one individual, but can fail with another individual. When failure occurs, it is important and necessary to try another technique and not quit. This is the reason why teachers of the learning disabled must be patient, open-minded, and able to give a great amount of attention.

Works Cited