========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jan 1995 10:38:45 -0500 Reply-To: Journal of Virtual Reality In Education Complete Journal Sender: Journal of Virtual Reality In Education Complete Journal From: Dick Banks Subject: Learning Disability and Education in , the 21 st Century @Copyright DUJVRE, Bob Zenhausern, Anne Pemberton, Lois Elman 1994 Zenhausern, Pemberton, Elman drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu 29 Learning Disability and Education in the 21st Century Robert Zenhausern Anne Pemberton Lois Elman The purpose of this article is two-fold. To illustrate the kind of discrimination faced by the Learning Disabled child or adult in our society and to summarize some of the strategies and techniques that are currently in use with this group, with an emphasis on Education in the 21st Century. The Nature of the Problem In our culture, there is an underlying bias against all types of cognitive disabilities that does not exist for those with sensory disabilities. The student who is blind is not blamed for being blind, but learning disability is somehow seen as the fault of the student. The child with learning disabilities is often accused of inattention or not working hard enough. The victim is held responsible for the problem and all would be well if he or she would "try harder". On the other hand, no one says to a blind person, "If you try harder you will be able to see." In the case of sensory and physical disability, we make accommodations in recognition of the specific disability and provide alternatives approaches. We recognize the limitation imposed by the disability and teach them to reach the same goals as the non-handicapped using alternative approaches, e.g. Talking Books, Closed Caption, and Computers. The LD person, on the other hand, is often accused of laziness and inattention. Instead of rehabilitation and accomodations, the LD person is given remedial drills in what they have already demonstrated they cannot do. Only recently has there has been grudging acceptance of the need to accommodate the LD individual. On the elementary and secondary levels, for example, there have been flexibility in the timing of tests and acceptance of calculators and spell checker. Many of the accommodations used in Learning Disability, however, have not always served to improve the education of the LD, but seem more cosmetic. The aim seems to be to allow the students to "pass" by giving them lower goals rather than maximizing their potential. The bias may start in grade school, but it continues throughout life as this personal experience of Lois Elman illustrates most vividly. Zenhausern, Pemberton, Elman drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu 30 "In September 1993, I attended a national meeting, in Washington, for parent advocates of disabled children and their families. In my conference packet was an application to be a grant reader for the Federal Department of Education in Washington, D.C. Since so many of these programs serviced people with disabilities, an effort was being made to give that population a voice in deciding which programs demonstrated merit to receive funding. Being the mother of two children with disabilities and learning disabled myself, I decided to give it a shot and apply. As a school psychologist, I qualified on a professional as well as a personal level. Several months after having filled out all the papers and senta detailed vita of my professional experience, a representative of the Department phoned and invited me to come to Washington. "After controlling my initial excitement, I proceeded to remind the caller that as a learning disabled person I had to cope with certain limitations. I asked if I could use my portable computer to write out any documentation and was told that they didn't have a program which could be used with a Macintosh platform. Since everyone hand wrote their comments on special forms, I was told that I had to do the same. When I tried to explain, I was told that maybe I could be given a Department portable computer but there were people who were more needy than me attending the session. "I don't think that anyone at the Department of Education would be insensitive enough to arrange for a grant reader in a wheel chair to stay in a hotel room which is not adapted to accommodate the width of the chair through the bathroom door. Just because a learning disability is not obvious on first glance, doesn't the individual deserve to be treated with dignity and regard for their difference? The story and plea of Lois Elman illustrates the bias continues throughout the lifespan. Often the problem is not as blatant as that experienced by Lois. A good example of this can be seen in a series of e-mail messages from young man in college. Todd is a student with LD who fought his way through the special education hoops and hurdles to an Associate degree and is now enrolled in a 4 year college. Todd's first message: "School is fine. It is a lot harder then I thought it would be. I'm writing more papers then I did at my last college but I am learned alot more about writing papers so it's not to bad. I'm only takeing 3 class, but I end up having to put a lot more time in each of my class then my roommates do just to get the same grades as they do. Sometime it gets to me and I don't feel like going on but I just remind my self of how far I have come and push on. My teachers are good this semester. I go to them alot for help and they set down with me and help me. I also go to the learning center ever day for help on writing. They have helped me get better grades on my papers then if I just did then my self. Zenhausern, Pemberton, Elman drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu 31 A few days later, a second message: "Hi remmber when I said that I have trouble studing 5 chapters at once well I have to do it for my Tuesday class. This is the class that I know what is going on but when it comes to takeing the test I don't do as well as I want. I know what the problem is. I have trouble remmbering tec words. I can tell you what is going on but sometimes that does not help on a test because the teacher wants just the word. Todd has "dysnomia," which is characterized by an individual's inability to find the correct word or words to express himself. Ask a dysnomic child "What is a steeple" and they will say, "The thing on top of a church". Ask "What is the thing on the top of a church called?" and they cannot answer. This child has difficulty reading since they cannot articulate the printed word and have what can be compared to a "tip of the tongue". We have all probably experienced the frustration of having a word or name just beyond our ability to say it. Such a child might read uncle for the word aunt. Comprehension without articulation. Fortunately for Todd, the teacher was a kind and patient man who gave his time to help prepare Todd for the exam and he ultimately did very well. The teacher was helping Todd by preparing him for the test in private sessions. I would hope that all teachers showed the dedication of that man, but it is important to point out that he was using a remediation approach and not accommodation. An accommodation to Todd's unique disability would have been to ask the questions in a different way. Changing the evaluation procedure, rather than drill in passing a test would have been easier on both student and teacher. Prepare a test for the student rather than prepare the student for a test. The whole experience had a very positive effect, as can be seen in this message from Todd after a talk he gave on LD for one of his classes. "This was the first time that I ever gave a speech on this problem and it made me feel special. I liked the idea of telling people of a problem that not too many know about. I also felt that after my speech my class mates treated me a little different. They never treated me bad before but sometimes when I read out loud or spelled something they would make fun of it. Not really me just what I said or spelled. But after, one person came up to me and said, "I gess I can't bother you about your spelling anymore. I think if it is possible that people who have these problems should say something and teach other people about it so everyone can have a understanding of what a LD person must go threw to learn to make in life. Since then Todd has found a pen pal in Virginia who has spina bifida and has volunteered to be a tutor for LD students who are part of the DO-IT project at the University of Washington. Zenhausern, Pemberton, Elman drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu 32 Even if this type of discrimination is eliminated, however, the original learning disability remains and the next section of the paper is a summary of how specific accomodations are being used. Solutions in Technology Low Technology The use of Adaptive technology in the education of those with learning disabilities has come a long way since the days of "perceptual training" when the learning disabled were trained to walk on balance beams in an effort to improve their reading skills. Notebooks, three-ring binders, index cards, xerox copies of someone else's notes, typewriters, color overlays, special colored glasses, and color-coding, highlighters, vcr's and video tapes, tape recorders, calculators, spell checkers, and personal computers are some of the various high and low technology options used by the learning disabled. Learning disabilities vary greatly from one individual to the next making it difficult for others to determine what the problem is and how to solve it. Such a person must often diagnose and solve his or her own problems, often battling problems with low self-esteem or a sense they are "stupid" because others do not seem to have similar problems. Embarrassment over having to use various crutches and adaptations often deter the learning disabled from sharing with others what "works" for them. There is a need for less drill and more alternative approaches to learning, evaluation, and productivity. In the Altlearn Discussion Group (Altlearn@sjuvm.stjohns.edu,log9105) there was a debate on the nature of Learning Disabilities that was punctuated by some heated discussion. There was considerable disagreement on many issues, but all participants agreed on one thing: an LD student must be taught in the way he or she can learn and it was up to the educators to find that way. An interesting contrast can be seen in the use of technology in Accommodation for the Blind and Remediation for the Learning Disabled. Accommodation for the Blind can range Voice Box Synthesizers that allow the Blind to communicate internationally across the Computer Networks to a Guide Dog. High Technology remediation for the LD child is all too often the substitution of computer drilling for the traditional workbook drills. Low Technology Remediation is the workbook without the computer. Zenhausern, Pemberton, Elman drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu 33 The following series of approaches aimed at educational disabilities are based on actual research and classroom practices and illustrate the scope of accomodations that have been used. Markman and Zenhausern (1989) found that about half the children in a mainstream class and 85% of LD children can not use verbal rehearsal to learn material. They found that the classic "Cat, C- A-T, Cat" used for spelling or the typical verbal repetition of the arithmetic tables actually interfered with retention for these individuals. The problem is compounded by the fact that this verbal repetition approach to rote learning is in such wide-spread use that individuals continue to use this counter-productive strategy beyond the K-12 school years. They question their own intellectual ability rather than the ineffectual strategies they have been taught to use. An alternative strategy is for such individuals to learn rote material by imaging the letters or numbers. When it come time to recall the material they can retrieve that image. They must make a conscious effort not to repeat the material either out loud or silently. In contrast to this group, 15% of the individuals with the Learning Disabled label and 50% of mainstream children can make very effective use of a verbal repetition strategy. These are the people who learn best by putting the ideas into their own words and explaining it to someone else. These are people who say they want to ask a question, but actually repeat what was just said in their own words. There is an interesting distinction between the two groups of individuals: one learns best by listening, the other learns best by speaking. This distinction is not limited to those with LD but is manifested by everyone to some degree. Perhaps the most debilitating form of Learning Disability stems from a problem with reading. Difficulty with reading is one of the earliest that appears in school and typically plagues individuals throughout their lifetimes. At home and in school, reading all too often means the ability to translate verbatim the printed word into sound. Skipping words and substitutions are unacceptable even though they preserve the meaning of the text. Individuals maintain that inadequate definition of "reading" after the K-12 school years, and thus maintain a self-image of reading disabled. Kalisky, Zenhausern, and Andrews, 1990 found that most children we have termed reading disabled do not learn to read because of the standard strategy used to teach reading. They identified two types of reading disabled individuals. The Phonetic Disabled group has difficulty with the first step of standard reading methods, converting a word to its sound. This can be seen by their poor performance in matching two words on the basis of rhyme despite the fact that they can match on the basis of meaning. These students struggle to pronounce every word and as a result, often lose continuity in the text. They are dysnomic and suffer from chronic "tip of the tongue". Zenhausern, Pemberton, Elman drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu 34 The second type of child is the Semantic Disabled reader who has no problem with the matching of two words on the basis of rhyme, but shows many more deficits in matching two words on the basis of meaning. These children will give a perfect word-for-word rendition of text, but have no comprehension of the meaning of that text. The semantic disabled reader can convert words into their phonetic representation, but there is no conversion of this representation into its meaning. Even non-reading disabled individuals have experienced "reading" text and suddenly realized that they were not comprehending the words that had been "read". The Semantic Disabled reader does this on a chronic level. These two deficits exhibited by the Phonetic and Semantic Reading Disabled Children can be directly related to the standard approaches used when teaching reading. Children come to school with auditory comprehension, that is, when the they hear the word "ball" they know it means "a round, bouncy thing". Reading means that when children see the letters b-a-l-l they know it means "a round, bouncy thing". Virtually every reading method is based on the strategy of converting the written word to its phonological counterpart so that meaning is derived from auditory comprehension. This approach has been termed the indirect phonological route to meaning. The child sees the word, says the word, and understands the word from its sound. This can be most clearly seen in a phonetic approach, but holds equally well for a sight "look say" approach. An alternative approach that does not depend on the standard indirect phonological route to meaning has been termed Direct Access because it teaches reading by connecting the printed word to its meaning directly. Direct Access at simplest level presents words and corresponding pictures are on separate index cards. As soon as the student learns to pair the words and pictures the student understands the word. The accommodation for these individuals is simple: allow the student to summarize what is read, or answer question about the text, but do not require him or her to read aloud word for word. In other words, the emphasis should be on comprehension rather than oral rendition. The Semantic Disabled reader can "read" aloud fluently, but has no idea of what they have just read. We all experience this from time to time, but these students have the problem on a chronic level. They, especially have been called lazy or inattentive and punished for their handicap. These people can learn to read using the Direct Access approach, but there is an instantaneous "cure" through the use of accommodation. Let the person read aloud into a tape recorder and then listen to the recording to understand what was just read. This is a strategy that may be especially effective for adults with semantic reading disability. Incidentally, individuals who fall into this group also tend to learn by speaking. Zenhausern, Pemberton, Elman drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu 35 Tape recorders are also invaluable for recording lectures and meetings in order to accommodate difficulties with listening, comprehending and remembering. For learning disabled person who find it easier to concentrate with background noise, tape recorders or radios with small headphones can provide the accommodating without disturbing others nearby. VCR's, videos (including the many self-help and how-to videos now on the market) are also especially useful to many learning disabled persons. In addition to the problems of learning to read, LD adults often resort to the use a variety of solutions to everyday problems. Co-author Lois Elmore shares her experiences in buying a small business: "The seller knew I was learning disabled because she had received a detailed vita. Yet, she wanted to negotiate the price of the business without having the benefit of any other professionals being involved. I realized that because I have gaps in my understanding of certain types of communications, I needed to bring in another person to listen and reflect back what was said. I wound up bringing an accountant to assist me with negotiations." "Just as a person who is blind benefits from a scanner to input text into the computer, I need other people to help me get around my "blind spots". In my way, I am using assistive technology. I used to be ashamed to ask someone else to help me do what I thought I should be able to do for myself. This feeling is constantly being reinforced by others. I now feel differently. I realize that if its OK for an individual who is deaf to use a TDD or a person who can't type on a key board to use a text scanner and switch, then its OK for me to have other people assist me through those areas of difficulty. Individuals with learning differences need to have good insight into their own gaps in order to know when to ask for help, as well as why kind and amount of help then need. Some other low-tech options include clear colored plastics overlays for printed material, index cards for note-taking, and pocket calendars or any of the "executive" organizer books and binders sold at many stationary stores. With the advent of the computer chip many low-tech paper and pencil aids have gone electronic. Tiny spell checkers take the place of clumsy dictionaries, small calculators do mundane math chores, and electronic address books, calendars, and organizers take the place of their paper predecessors. These items can be purchased alone, or incorporated into a multi-use computer, which can be a station at home, at work, or a "laptop" or Powerbook handily hung from a shoulder. Software that anticipates the word from the first three letters typed, and spell checkers and grammar checkers on the most widely used word processors help tailor the computer to the specific needs of the learning disabled person. Spreadsheets allow the use to "figure out" the formulae for every-day functions so that they are instantly available as needed. Data bases, project planners, calendars, and similar software allow users to conquer those pervasive organizational problems. Zenhausern, Pemberton, Elman drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu 36 The Computer Networks The computer networks have been considered the "Great Equalizer" for disabled individuals and this holds true for learning disabled individuals of all ages. Electronic mail and mailing lists, real-time chat, and text-based virtual reality have become the motivating factors and students with learning disabilities are now motivated to write clearly and with no errors in spelling and grammar. It is not uncommon to see these children cutting lunch to find a little more time on the networks. The Chatback Group provides an example of the use of mailing list for education of cognitively impaired children. Chatback is a project, based in the United Kingdom and supported by IBM. It was originally aimed at language impaired children, but has been expanded to include education in general with an emphasis on students with disabilities. The following are examples of what has been accomplished. Chatback is a project oriented list, designed to provide guidance and support for teachers who are using the computer networks in their classrooms. During the past two years Chatback has introduced several projects including: Far Star where children responded to an Alien Being about the policy and practices of Earth. The Holiday Dinner, where children from all over the world described a holiday meal; Steel, where the 10 steel yachts, involved in a race around the world, posted latitude and longitude. Children followed the race by plotting that information on maps. Memories tells the story of World War II in Europe through the eyes people who lived it. A soldier who survived the Croatian Death March; a schoolboy who lived through the London Blitz, and a Holocaust survivor are just some of the people who are telling their stories. In addition to the Chatback discussion aimed at projects for the children, there are are other lists with different orientations. Autism provides a forum for those interested in Autism and other developmental disorders. The subscribers include parents, relatives and friends of individuals with autistic individuals, teachers and researchers in the area, and individuals who are autistic themselves. Zenhausern, Pemberton, Elman drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu 37 Bicompal (Big Computer Pals) serves as the "classified ads" for individuals who are looking for network contacts for people with special needs. The initial goal was to develop Big Brother/Sister or Mentor/Student relationships among those with similar disabilities. In practice peer relationships have developed in parallel with the mentor relationships. One example involves a group of blind college students in Austria who are planning to communicate with school children in the New York City Board of Education Visually Limited Program. There are many other lists available at varied locations on the Internet including those on ADD, Traumatic Brain Injury, and a list aimed at Deaf Children. Resources for education may be widely available on both gopher and World Wide Web but the location of these resources has been a problem until the development of lists like EdRes-L, Gopher Jewels, the NY State Department of Education gopher, and WWWEduc. The St. John's University Internet node has a special resource called Unibase. Unibase has been under constant development by Leigh Calnek of the University of Regina over the past 10 years and there are over 30 systems currently in operation in Canada, New York, the Philippines, and Thailand. Unibase is a comprehensive system which encompasses the most important forms of electronic communications currently available on the for computers and the Internet. These include: local and Internet email, discussion groups, access to FTP, telnet, and gopher, WWW and interactive conferencing. The Unibase system at rdz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu has been integrated into the Education and Rehabilitation network that is emerging at St. John's. During the past six months Unibase has been used as a real-time conference center and recent conferences have included: 1) A panel on learning styles, with panelists from the US and Canada 2) On ongoing discussion group on violence in the schools 3) Olga Galkina, from Moscow, was available for several Broadnets on Unibase where she was available to discuss her efforts to get disabled children in Russia on the Networks. Note: A Broadnet is almost the opposite of a broadcast. A Broadcast sends all the information across the nets in all directions. A Broadnet attracts those who telnet to participate; it is more like a fishing net. Zenhausern, Pemberton, Elman drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu 38 A Multiuser Object Oriented (MOO) environment is a text based virtual reality world in which the participants create their ideal surroundings. They are an offshoot of the text based adventure games such as Zork except that the players have the power to create their own rooms and objects. Jeanne McWhorter saw the educational potential of such an environment and created Diversity University, a virtual college campus that was meant to provide the tools for higher education. At the present time, it is possible to walk through Dante's Inferno or take part in a simulated Battle of Agincourt. Diversity University Prep was created as a K-12 extension of DU and several projects have been developed for children in special education. Learning disabled students from NY and VA are creating a virtual performance of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Graduate students in School Psychology are involved in virtual externships with some of these students and are looking at their creations as possible protective instruments. Learning styles are being measured, no on the basis of the scores on some instrument, but in terms of the environments the children actually create on the MOO. While the emphasis has been on the learning disabled child, the computer networks are effective tools for a person of any age. For several years, husband of co-author Anne Pemberton, Steve, grumbled about her growing involvement with the networks even though he realized that much of her time online was necessary to provide good experiences for her Learning Disabled high school students. Finally, he gave in and decided it would be easier to join than to fight. A plumber and building systems technician by trade, his first time online included a lengthy chat with a building engineer in New York City. Soon after, he discovered and subscribed to a mailing list about the Civil War, which tied into his volunteer work at a local park. His initial trials of the gopher and World Wide Web systems yielded information useful to, and to be incorporated in the History Pavilion of the Virginia's PEN, to be used by Virginia students studying that period in history. Steve's learning disability is most obvious in his writing, which compares poorly to the rich language skills he has in speaking, listening and reading. Use of the keyboard has increased the quantity of words he generates, from single words and short phrases to paragraphs of 2-3 complex sentences. As with many new users, he's too excited by the immediacy of electronic communications to do much offline writing (which can be "cleaned up" by spell checkers and such), so uses the "ask the wife" method of getting words down recognizably. Zenhausern, Pemberton, Elman drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu 39 Summary, Conclusions, and Implications One focus of this paper has been on the discrimination faced by individuals with cognitive disabilities. In summary, there is an underlying bias against all types of cognitive disabilities that does not exist for those with sensory and physical disabilities. The student who cannot see is not blamed for being blind, but learning disability is somehow seen as the fault of the student. It is fortunate that the techniques that maximize the potential of a student we term learning disabled maximize the potential of all students. We have to eliminate our teaching disabilities and learn how to teach more children. Then we do not have to use the label Learning Disabled as frequently. A second point of this paper is based on the historical fact that the main emphasis of the 20th Century was to perfect and automate the 19th Century and the main emphasis of Education was to preserve the 19th Century. During these past 200 years we have seen a growth from the quill pen to desk top publishing; from laborious hand calculations to calculators and spreadsheets; from hand drawing to CAD; from library card catalogs to World Wide Web. Throughout this whole period, however, Education has stressed the importance of handwriting, arithmetic tables, and dated research techniques. Why do we give closed book tests, with an arbitrary time limit, where the student does not have access to calculators and spell checkers? This may be appropriate for the 19th Century workplace, but it does not reflect the tools essential for the 21st Century. Our conception of the 3 R's must be expanded and modified and there must be a re-evaluation of what we mean by Elementary Education Reading Reading disability is one of the most serious problems in Education today since it is a basic tool of any century. Much of that problem, however, has at its basis the rigid and standardized approaches in reading instruction. An alternative approach, Direct Access has been summarized earlier, and this is just one instance of flexibility. There has been a constant debate as to whether a phonetic or sight approach is better for reading. Researchers and theorticians on both sides supported their arguments with words and data. Unfortunately, with all this debate over the two ways of teaching reading, no one looked to see if there might be two different kinds of children. Reading and writing should not be taught, but expected of a child, the way listening and speaking are expected and not taught. Zenhausern, Pemberton, Elman drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu 40 Writing The complaint that students do not how to write is echoed from the Halls of the Third Grade and the halls of the University. Pre School children want to "write letters" explain things, and tell stories and then they enter the First Grade. Consider a 5 or 6 year old being taught to write. He or she must complete 2 or 3 pages of filled with the letter "A" and is criticized for sloppiness. As punishment children are forced to write repetitive statements. The separation of penmanship and creative expression is evident in many programs where the children write and worry about spelling later or where the teacher takes dictation for the story the child tells. I propose to let a child learn to write on a computer and let handwriting be taught later as an ancillary skill (much like we currently teach music an art). Separate creative writing from graphology. Keyboarding skills are much more important in the workplace than handwriting. This has a natural potential for integration into strategies to teach reading. Arithmetic Poor performance in Mathematics is one of the more serious problems faced by society today since Mathematics forms the basis of scientific work which underlies progress. I think that what we call mathematics disability can be traced to an early problem in arithmetic. Children who cannot master their tables, multiplication, long division, etc. are held back from advanced mathematics. Given the widespread use of calculators in the workplace, an insistence on rote calculations is not a realistic preparation for the world after school. I would like to suggest a program based a three-pronged approach to the teaching of mathematics: standard "paper and pencil" calculations, intensive experience with approximations, and extensiveuse of electronic calculators and computers. In the case of uneven development in these three areas, the child will be allowed to progress differentially so that difficulty in one prong does not interfere with growth in the other prongs. The final point of the paper is that we need to add an "I" for information to the Three R's. To survive in the 21st Century, a person must know how to find information and know where to look for information. In the 19th Century, the goal was to cram as much as possible into your memory. In the 20th Century, the 19th Century was automated. In the 21st Century, one goal is to cram as much data as possible into computer memory and still be able to find it. The students have will then have time to convert the data into information and find creative uses for the information. Authors: Robert Zenhausern Anne Pemberton Lois Elman Email: drz@sjuvm.stjohns.edu