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(10) «When we talk about a learning disability, we're talking about a difficulty in acquiring, retrieving,
storing, processing, using or expressing information», explains Lynne Hacker, a speech-and-language
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pathologist whose private practice is devoted solely to helping children, adolescents, and adults with LDs.
(11) The term «dyslexia», often used interchangeably with «learning disability», refers specifically to
any type of problem with language, whether it's speaking, listening, reasoning, understanding, reading,
80 writing, spelling, or even arithmetic, which is a type of language. Many children have more than one prob-
lem. «The label is not as important as understanding where and how the disability affects children and
finding out what can be done to help them». Hacker says.
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(12) Parents who don't understand how a learning difference affects behavior may unwillingly form an
alliance with the legions of educators throughout the child's school career who can't explain his erratic
performance. Teachers may call the child lazy or willful, or say he's bright but doesn't apply himself, or
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commend his insightful comments but wonder why his intellect is not reflected in the tests he takes and the
homework he turns in. («He» is used for simplicity's sake. Psychologist Rosa Hagin, a professor in the
Graduate School of Education at Fordham University, disputes the traditional assumption that learning
95 disorders occur for or five times more frequently in boys than in girls. She has concluded, based on her
testing of 10,000 young children in New York City and suburban public schools, that boys more frequently
get the LD label because they tend to express their frustrarion through disruptive behavior, while girls
100 generally respond by becoming quiet and withdrawn).
(13) Irritated parents compound the problem by punishing, blaming, accusing. «Why aren't you
listening?» and «How many times do I have to tell you?» are common cries. Because they know that the
105 child is bright, they suspect him of «conning» them, of purposely testing their limits. But these children
can't read visual signals the way other people do, so when a teacher or parent is about to explode, the child
literally doesn't know when to quit.
110 (14) Believing their parents and teachers are against them, many children give up. Jessica Dupont was
one of them. Even though she sometimes had as many as five tutors, she couldn't keep up in school. Neither
her teachers nor the professionals who tutored her understood that giving Jessica more of what she was
getting in school just wouldn't help her learn.
115 (15) «I felt like I was a complete failure», Jessica says. «I was the sttipid one — my sister was smart.
Every time a report card came out, I got yelled at. My parents thought I had no motivation. Eventually I
didn't have any desire to study».
120 (16) Carole Dupont is still amazed that no one at any of the elite private schools she chose ever identified
her daughter's problem. «I couldn't understand why every year she was having so much trouble just
passing. She was so quick. I knew something was wrong. In fourth grade, I asked the teacher if she
125 thought that Jessica had some type of learning disability. Her only remark was a condescending «Don't
compare her to her older sister».
(17) How can a child know how to spell or read a word one day and forget it the next? What makes him
130 reply «Fine» to the question «How old are you?»? Why should a bright child of nine still have trouble
telling time?
(18) Some neurologists believe that the dyslexic brain is «wired» differently from the non-dyslexic
brain. According to their theory, the right hemisphere of a learning-disable child's brain is larger than the
135 left hemisphere. These researchers suspect that during the second trimester of pregnancy, cells that should
migrate from the right side to the language centers in the left side don't get there but rather end up in the
frontal lobe, where they do not mature.
140 (19) A child with this kind of anomalous brain will have tremendous difficulty learning by conventional
teaching methods geared to the «normal» brain. But if given help, an LD child can overcome the obstacles
he faces: language therapy tailored to the workings of the dyslexic brain can teach it to compensate for its
deficiencies and maximize its strengths.
145 (20) A learning difficulty can be inherited. The child's mother
or father may have done poorly in school and may still not be much of a reader; his grandfather's bad
handwriting and terrible spelling may be the stuff of family legend. Such problems may be indications that
the parent or grandparent had an LD.