Ask not how smart is this child but, how is this child smart

  • Lecture: Reconsidering Normal: Learning Disabilities
    in the Classroom
  • Speaker: Prof. Linda Siegel, Faculty of Education,
    UBC
  • Date: Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1997
  • Time: 7 p.m.
  • Place: Robson Square Conference Centre, conference
    room 2
  • Information: call 822-6239.

Can’t balance your chequebook? You could be the next Agatha
Christie.

Christie, like many creative, successful people, including
Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein, had a learning disability.
In the famous mystery writer’s case, it was a bad memory for
numbers, typified by difficulty with adding numbers. Both
da Vinci and Einstein were dyslexic.

“Agatha Christie couldn’t spell, had terrible handwriting
and was incapable of balancing her chequebook,” says Prof.
Linda Siegel, holder of UBC’s Dorothy C. Lam Chair in Special
Education. “But people with learning disabilities often have
strengths and talents that shouldn’t be overlooked.”

Siegel says that individuals who have difficulty learning
arithmetic often are creative, possess good oral skills and
have an aptitude for the dramatic arts. People with dyslexia
may display artistic talents and mechanical skills, and excel
at music and sports, particularly swimming, skiing and tennis.

“The learning disabled are neither lazy nor stupid. We must
realize this, pay attention to their problems and make it
an important issue for the educational system. Our schools
need to ensure that the greatness in each child can flourish.
A significant step has been to shift the question `how smart
is this child’ to `how is this child smart.'”

Siegel believes that a major problem facing the learning
disabled is the way in which learning difficulties are defined,
usually according to a rigorous measurement of the discrepancy
between an IQ test score and the individual’s achievement
levels.

“If someone scores low on an IQ test but can’t read very
well, they may be considered slow but not learning disabled,”
Siegel explains. “Their problem is neglected, they get left
behind and, as studies indicate, that increases their risk
for developing emotional and social difficulties.”

Her own research findings indicate that learning disabilities
may play a role in adolescent suicides and the emergence of
street youth.

Although frustration, a lack of self-esteem and emotional
disturbances are common in people with learning disabilites,
Siegel says the difference between who becomes a productive
member of society and who may commit suicide is the amount
of attention and help they receive from parents and the education
system.

She will examine the known causes of learning disabilities
and what can be done to address the problem during her address,
Reconsidering Normal: Learning Disabilities in the Classroom,
the second lecture in the Faculty of Education’s series on
important educational issues.

Respondents are Sandra Gebhardt, director of operations,
Learning Disabilities Association of B.C. and school psychologist
Lorna Bennett.

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