Learning Disability Definition According To Experts – Each individual is a unique person, has advantages or disadvantages and different needs. Likewise with children with special needs.
A child with special needs is a child who has significantly abnormalities (physical, mental-intellectual, social, emotional) in the process of development compared to other children his age so they need special education services. Thus, although a child has certain abnormalities, but the abnormalities are not significant so that they do not need special education services, the child is not a child with special needs.
There are various types of children with special needs, one of which is learning difficulties or Learning Disabilities (LD). Learning disabilities (LD) are one of the problems that are widely encountered in the world of education. LD concerns the incapableness of students to complete their academic tasks appropriately.
LD is a condition experienced by students related to obstacles, delays and lags in reading, writing and counting skills. Students who have difficulty learning are students who have real difficulty in special and general academic tasks, both due to neurological dysfunction, basic psychological processes and other causes so that their learning achievement is low and children are at high risk of failing a grade.
Learning Disability Definition
Federal Definition
The term “certain learning disabilities” is an irregularity in one or more basic psychological processes involving the understanding or use of language, oral or written, which can show imperfections of the ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or make mathematical calculations.
These include conditions such as perceptual ability, brain damage, minimal brain malfunction, dyslexia, and the development of aphasia. Not included are learning problems caused by vision, hearing, motion, or mental retardation, or emotional impairment, or caused by environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantages.
Definition of National Joint Commute on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD)
Learning disabilities are a general term referring to the heterogeneous group of disorders shown by real difficulties in mastery and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, circulating and mathematical abilities.
This mess is part of the individual, and is inferred due to the malfunction of the central nervous system, and can occur in life. Problems in personal behavior, social perception, and social interaction can occur with learning disabilities, but not by themselves become learning disabilities.
Although learning disabilities can occur side by side with other disabling conditions (e.g., sensory damage, mental retardation, serious emotional disorders) or with external influences (such as cultural distinctions, insufficient or incorrect instructions), they are not the result of such conditions or influences (NJCLD, 1990).
Lyon (1996)
The concept of learning disability focuses on the gap between academic achievement and the capacity of children’s learning ability. For example, in children with difficulty reading will also experience impaired concentration of attention at a certain level.
Individuals with learning disability have average general intelligence and even above average. Some researchers state that learning disability is the gap between the age of mental maturity (intelligence based on mental age, not age based on date of birth) that should be and the age of achievement or achievement ability of the current achievement (which is the real thing).
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1997 defines specific learning disability (specific learning difficulties, later abbreviated as SLD) as disorders of one or more basic psychological processes, including the understanding or use of language, speaking or writing, disorders manifested in imperfect ability to hear, think, speak, read, write, spell, or perform mathematical calculations.
Disorders that include SLD are perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia and the development of aphasia. While disorders that do not fall into the SLD category are the inability to see, hear or have disorders of the organs of motion, mental retardation, emotional, environmental or cultural disorders, as well as poverty
There are different types of learning disabilities and each has no definite cause. But the basis of all these types of learning disabilities is believed to be a focus on brain function.
Learning disabilities are 5 times more common in boys. A child with learning disabilities often has difficulty in coordinating his vision and movements and shows awkwardness when carrying out physical activities, such as cutting, coloring, buttoning clothes, tying shoe laces and running.
Children may also experience problems with vision perception or phonological processing or problems with memory, conversation, thinking and hearing. Some children have problems reading, writing or counting. But most of these learning disabilities are complex and the abnormalities are common in more than one area.
