The Learning Disability Phenomenon in Pursuit of Axioms

Abstract

The social epistemologist studies the basic nature of knowledge and defines axioms as statements of absolute truths that are undeniable, inescapable, and devoid of most uncertainties (Machan, 1985). The accidental phenomenon of learning disabilities (LD) has pursued the scientific truths in axioms for 42 years. Writing facts and perceptions regarding the history and future of LD enables theorists and practitioners to determine if any of its constructs and practices reaches consensus as universally accepted axioms of undeniable truths. SEMINAL LESSONS AND UNRESOLVED ISSUES In mid-1900, rapid growth in population, social needs, as well as political pressures compelled medicine, rehabilitation, psychology, and education to serve children in subcategories of sensory, physical, mental, and communicative disabilities. LD as we know it today was not included. Some legislators, educators, and parents believed certain children, even in the accepted categories of disability, should be excluded from schooling. At the time, no philosophical, ethical, or legal consensus guided comprehensive service planning for (or from) individuals with disabilities. A memorable assignment in college required me to explain the early array of terms used to describe learning problems, including childhood aphasia, brain damage, perceptual handicap, word blindness, and/or hyperactivity. Terminology issues still confront students and professionals, including uncertainties regarding LD subtypes. Also, I discovered that general educators often broadly categorized children with learning problems as underachievers, who included children with poor teaching, learning, or both (Kessler, 1988). In 1958, I participated in the first elementary classroom at Teacher's College, New York City, for children labeled brain injured. My assignment was Peter, whose joyful spirit, impulsive capers, and unique learning pattern fit several of the terms used in the learning problem puzzle. The psychologist suggested that if these children lay end-to-end from New York to California, the only thing we could predict was that they all would get dirty. I did not realize at the time the profound truths embedded in that statement. It provoked the various interpretations and intimated the uncertainties that subsequently would confound the understanding and treatment of children's learning disabilities for decades. Three more lessons, among many during my education, were seminal for me and are critical foundations for current and future practices. These include (a) each child must be studied and understood in-depth; (b) methods exist to help any child learn; and (c) few children (or parents) are resistant to correct interventions, even though resistance to intervention is one topic in the endless debate on how to identify a child with LD (NRCLD, 2003). These early lessons partly prepared me for LD events during my role as the Missouri director of special education from 1962 to 1965. For example, the commissioner asked me to explain why legislators in Missouri and other states were getting bills for educating brain injured children, especially because Missouri had enacted mandatory education for children in the usual categories of handicaps in 1955. (1) When I said children labeled as brain injured were not being identified under the extant categories, he grumbled that we didn't need any new programs because the education department already was an underfunded, overstretched service station. LEARNING DISABILITIES: A DESCRIPTOR TRANSFORMED INTO A CATEGORICAL LABEL Samuel Kirk attempted to avoid the categorical labels he disliked by describing some children as having learning disabilities in his historic speech in 1963. That collective descriptor was transformed quickly into a categorical labeling phenomenon, causing his audience to change their group name to the Association for Learning Disabilities. The various labels in the Missouri bills were replaced in favor of LD, which also spread nationally into laws, child programs, group names, research, and the literature. …