Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

The historical roots of the field of learning disabilities go back over 150 years, even though the term is one of the most recent in the area of special education. Lerner (1985) divided the history of learning disabilities into four distinct periods. These included the foundation phase (1800–1930), which emphasized basic scientific research related to the brain, and the transition phase (1930–1960) during which time the brain research was applied to the study of children. More recent phases were the integration phase (1960–1980) at which time learning disabilities were recognized within school programs, and the contemporary phase (1980 to the present), which reflects emerging and future directions. When these phases are studied more closely, two important points are noted. First, the field of learning disabilities had its origins firmly implanted within a medical model. For example, an evolution of medically related terms were used to describe children who were having learning and behavioral problems. These included brain injured, perceptually handicapped, minimal brain dysfunction, and the Strauss syndrome. Even today, there are vestiges of this theoretical base applied in the schools. The second point is that the actual acknowledgment of the term learning disability as an educational disability is relatively recent. In fact, the history of the actual term learning disability is relatively short yet extremely complex.