Contemporary Ideas for Identifying Learning Disabilities

In recent years, learning difficulties or specific learning difficulties have emerged as the most studied and known classification of special education, with special education becoming synonymous with itself depending on how often students are placed in this category. However, considering that learning difficulties are not established as a separate discipline, it is the special education category that has brought the most disagreement among academics, researchers and educators to date. In other words, no causal relationship has been determined between the phenomenology of learning difficulties and the factors that cause them. Despite formal definitions, there is a lack of understanding of their nature and interpretation, indicating that the main purpose of a different discipline has not been fulfilled. Without understanding their nature and interpretation, scientific perspectives on learning difficulties remain questionable or unfounded. And this is at the heart of the problem for identification learning difficulties, which lack consensus on how to better define a classification category.

Over 100 years of work, a unanimous and definitive answer to a simple question has not been given: What are the learning difficulties? Today, much is known about their characteristics and applied practices, but there is yet no answer to the question of whether they represent a separate category of students with low academic achievement or are structures that all underperforming students can do. These two aspects have been studied meticulously over time, though not consistently. As a result, even today some claim that learning disability represents a particular difficulty. Because while these children have high intelligence, others are believed to include any child who cannot learn.

Scientists from various disciplines, but mostly educators, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, my child who goes to parents’ kindergarten is writing in reverse or is this dyslexia? Will my child become a future Einstein? My child has difficulty understanding meanings, and could this be dyslexic? or My child may be distressed and performing poorly at school and therefore having learning difficulties? These scientists have tried to make the field functionally functional through international organizations such as the Learning Barriers Association. That is, they tried to answer whether it is a scientific discipline with certain characteristics or an all-encompassing pseudoscience. They also sought to identify operational characteristics that would help children reach their full potential in the school and community context.

Contemporary Frames

For this reason, researchers are now trying to redefine their field to answer the question of whether certain learning disabilities constitute a scientific category or represent one of the lower achieving groups that do not need specific treatment or specially designed training. As discussed recently, the field description should summarize all pre-existing knowledge reflected in various definitions and applied pedagogical practice. This helps determine the degree of contribution of the deficiency as well as the contribution of the effects of various external factors. Education reform efforts in the USA emphasize the application of evidence-based teaching approaches to improve reading instruction, which has been the focus of research both in the US and internationally for more than 30 years.

A major concern emerging from the research is the failure of education systems to bridge the gap between children, particularly those with disabilities and those belonging to minorities. Despite redefinitions and training arrangements, there are still uncertainties and contradictions regarding the conceptualization and definition of learning difficulties. There have been attempts to determine why they exist, and many neurobiological researchers have attempted to attribute them to central nervous system (CNS) disorders. But so far the reasons have not been determined. The framework for describing intelligence achievement inconsistency is still used internationally by people who view learning difficulties as a distinct disorder. The low achievement model, on the other hand, is applied by those who mention a group of low achieving students that is not different.

In the USA, school districts in various states have begun to complement the traditional test model (for example, intelligence-achievement mismatch) with the child’s response to the intervention. As mentioned, the child’s response to intervention is considered a suitable method for identifying students with learning disabilities. In a national survey, 72% of teachers and 54% of parents support this decision. Because the child’s response to intervention approach facilitates early intervention and pre-referral services. In this way, inappropriate referrals to special education are reduced and at the same time, a preventive intervention model is created for students who are referred to special education services after demonstrating school failure. In recent years, another framework, the strengths and weaknesses model, has emerged with the trend to prevail. Although not covered by federal law regulations, it is widely accepted and used in the US because it supports research-based practices.

Therefore, depending on the theoretical approaches to learning difficulties, there are four framework models that can be used to conceptualize and define, especially in the USA today. Advocates of the nondiscriminatory nature of the disorder have adopted the low achievement framework that does not take into account the unexpected failure element. Advocates of the distinctive nature of the disorder use one or more of the remaining three frameworks: intelligence-achievement mismatch, response to instruction-intervention, and intra-individual differences. One of the key elements of the distinguishing character of the disease is the concept of unexpected failure. This is offered by children who need to learn but are not able to achieve scholastic success, without other learning disabilities and while receiving adequate education. Therefore, the key aspect of evaluating the validity of the identification is to determine which frames produced a unique set of low successes. A valid classification should reflect metrics that provide functionality to the contingency failure structure.