I am starting a PhD this year and have made it a goal to read one academic article each day. Mostly I fail at this goal but – it is good to have a goal. Even failure to read one a day but getting to it some days could be considered a success… more on that later.

Many articles are I read are filed away as being somewhat interesting and useful for citations. I appreciate my OneNote and am learning to use EndNote to make this process easier. Occasionally I read an article that actually captures my attention and makes me really think. Today was that day so I wanted to share it out. You can find the link to the full article below, highly recommended if you want a well thought out academic summary. What is found here are my first impressions, quite off the cuff and rambling. If that is what you are looking for today keep reading.

This article is part of a body of work which I had never seen but plan to dive right into now, from the Frostig Center. I know of Frostig from my master’s work. Marianne Frostig did a lot of the early work on coordination and learning disabilities. In my previous academic life that was the focus of my work and you can find out about it here if you want to. That is not what this paper is about. This paper is part of a longitudinal study (20 years!!) following the experiences of students with Learning Disabilities. With the stated goal of “understand[ing] as fully as possible and describe the common “life-span experiences” of our students so that generalization, implications, and recommendations could be made for all persons with LD”. I wonder if by the end they realized that the paper spoke pretty clearly against making “generalizations and recommendations for all persons”. At least that is how I read it. It did, however, leave me with a lot of thoughts that I will try to summarize here quickly.

***While I disagreed with a lot of the blanket statements made in this paper, I think most of them could be reframed by positive changes in wider society in the last 20 years. This paper was written in 2002, so not a reflection on the authors or the work.

Consultation with the LD community

I appreciate the authors explicit reference to consultation with members of the LD community during the publishing process. This sort of reference always makes me wonder and question my own “community” and if I can rightfully identify as neurodiverse. I had an identification of “gifted” as a child. I certainly resonate with a lot of the challenges and gifts typically attributed to ADHD and Autism. I have never tried or even wanted to be “normal”. Do I count?

The importance of “acceptance”.

The authors make several comparisons with other research on acceptance: of disabilities and grief, seen as a multi-stop process with the final and most important stage being “acceptance”. While I would agree with the idea that “I know and love who I am” is a very important part of happiness for all people I wonder about the importance of acceptance of a learning disability, as something that is unchangeable. Different from most physical disabilities and very different from the stages of grief when dealing with a loved one who has died: a learning disability is housed exclusively inside a plastic brain. While I don’t argue with the reality that different brains are wired up in different ways, we now know that the wiring is changeable and constantly evolving. It makes me wonder if  “acceptance” is the final and best outcome.

The importance of reframing

What I did notice is that the beginning of the article talks about acceptance as a final and important stage, whereas later in the paper they lay out a 6 step plan for acceptance which ends with reframing your understanding of a learning disability in a positive light. Speaking of positive light: I love the shout out near the end to adversity = strength and struggle = empathy. I do believe in the identification of students with learning differences. I like it because it lets them easily find like minds which helps with strategies, making friends, and self-love. I do wonder sometimes if we are not now just “identifying” all the interesting people. One in three students at the high school I work at has an Individual Education Plan. Maybe the reframing has to happen in the opposite direction now.

Inconsistency of the label of Learning Disability

The authors address this issue, and the inconsistency of the label: Learning Disability. In their research they see participates use this ambiguity as a tool to “negotiate” their label to find the least damaging version, while also maximizing the support they will receive. The reality is that now there is less support so an IEP no longer means 1:1 intervention. At least it feels like there is less support, the reality of special education funding depends on who you ask. Maybe its just that “weird is the new normal” and with so many identifications certainly not everyone is getting or needs 1:1 support.

Quantity vs. Quality

One quote from the research that stood out to me with this one:

“The need attention. That’s basically it. The way to cure someone, I think, with a learning disability, is to give them an extreme amount of personal attention. The problem is that it costs a lot of money to do that. There basically isn’t that much attention to go around.”

I’m not sure I agree with that either. I’ve seen many 1:1 support systems that look a lot like babysitting and lots of 20:1 classrooms where one teacher was giving individual support to each student. It doesn’t always work that way, of course, but I’d rather see change in culture and pedagogy than funding. (Don’t get me wrong, more money is always good, just not the magic ticket to educational success.)

Measures of Success

(**Full disclosure: Try to never compare anyone to anyone else: it’s generally not good for self-esteem, happiness or well being. But for arguments sake….) The last piece that stuck out for me was measures of success. This one really made me think something new – and I’m always grateful when that happens. The authors make the point that measures of “success” with a disability is generally taken by comparing two people with the same disability. “That person in a wheelchair is such a ‘success’ because they have been able to lead an independent life”. Whereas the measure of “success” of a neurodiverse individual is generally done in comparison to neurotypical, “That person with a Learning Disability is so ‘successful’,  you’d never know they had an LD”. Doesn’t really sound fair does it? Also – the idea that lifelong supports are not really seen as part of a plan for someone with a Learning Disability. Why not? In communities we support each other all the time. I support my husband with making dinner because he’s not very good at it and he supports me with making sure the doors are locked and the dishwasher is emptied because I would forget. Can we stop measuring “success” by how much some is getting help or not?

As I said at the beginning, lots of thoughts. I hope I have inspired you to look back at the original research. It is good. If you’ve gotten this far, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Different is the new normal? Measures of success? Who gets to identify as neurodiverse? Surely you have an opinion.

Higgins, E. L., Raskind, M. H., Goldberg, R. J., & Herman, K. L. (2002). Stages of Acceptance of a Learning Disability: The Impact of Labeling. Learning Disability Quarterly, 25(1), 3–18. https://doi.org/10.2307/1511187