The Learning Disability Epidemic

There are approximately two million people with some sort of learning disability in the United States alone. It is also estimated that one out of every five people walking around our earth has dyslexia. Autism is on the rise as well. When I first started teaching in 1983, I had never even heard of autism, and until recently it was a condition that most people didn’t know about either. These people were tucked away somewhere and were referred to as idiot savants. Currently it is estimated that there are one in one hundred and fifty people diagnosed with autism.

There are over one million people diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. In addition, there are 2.9 million students in our country who are enrolled in special education. 27% of these students with learning disabilities drop out of high school, compared to an 11% drop out rate of the general population.

These statistics are alarming, frightening. Is there anyone out there who is functioning normally? And what is causing this alarming rise in learning problems?

Even worse, what if you are one of these people, or even worse, a parent of a child who is struggling to survive in the jungle of our school system with one of these disorders? A struggling student can tear a family apart. Parents worry and fret. Siblings feel left out. The child feels isolated, defeated, demoralized. And to top it off, parents rarely know the course of action they should take. Should they ride it out, hoping for maturity to set in or choose a more proactive measure and seek help within the school system? Or maybe they should find help outside of the schools system.

Parents are stymied, that’s for sure. Doctors, lawyers, architects, bricklayers and garbage collectors all have children who struggle to learn and suffer in school. And across the board they all seem to want the same thing – help for their children or even help for themselves. Help and hope. Help to get them through these painful school years and hope that it will all be OK. And they just want to know that their children are normal, regular kids with a normal outlook for life.

Some parents choose the wait and see route. They hope the child will just develop naturally somehow. With maturity the child will suddenly seem to learn. I took this route myself for a few years. Other parents seem to be on top of it from the start, sensing something isn’t right and wanting, even demanding help for this all encompassing problem.

And, we all know the fate of those who don’t get help. High school dropouts, drugs, drinking, prison, suicide. It’s not pretty. We also know about the increasing standards that schools are placing on these very kids and how these kids increasingly keep falling behind. Most of these kids have been through the school system in America and have been failed by it unmercifully. And, the truly sad part of this picture is that these students are indeed bright, gifted, talented individuals – but greatly misunderstood.

Part Two - Learning Disabled or Just Wired Differently