CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

            A literature review is the process of locating, obtaining, reading and evaluating the research literature in your area of interest.  There are several important reasons for conducting a literature review.  Perhaps the most important reason is to avoid the needless duplication of effort.  No matter what topic you choose chances are that someone has already done research on it.  By becoming familiar with that area through a literature review.

            You can avoid reinventing the wheel your specific research question may have already been addressed and answer if so then conducting your research as originally planned would be a waste of time.  This does not mean.  However, that you must start over from scratch.  To the contrary your literature review may reveal other questions that remain to be answered.

            By familiarizing yourself existing research and theory in an area your can revise your research project to explore some of these newly identified questions.  Another advantage to reviewing the literature applies to the design phase of your research.  Designing a study involves several decisions as to what variables to include and how to measure them, what apparatus to use, what procedure to use and so on.  Published research provides you with a rich resource for addressing these important design questions.

            Yet another advantage is that a review of the literature keeps you up-to-date on current empirical or theoretical controversies in a particular research area.  As science progresses new idea concerning age, old behavioural issues.  For example, a debate is under way concerning the motives for altruistic behaviour.  Some argue that altruism is motivated by empathy and other by egoism (self satisfaction).

            Such controversies not only provide a rich resource of research ideas but also give direction to specific research hypotheses and designs.

Learning Disabilities

What is Learning?

            According to the American Heritage Dictionary (2002), learning is defined as:

·                    The act, process or experience of gaining knowledge or skills.

·                    Knowledge or skills gained through schooling or study.

·                    Psychology behavioural modification especially through experience or conditioning.

            Learning is a fundamental process of life, much of our working hours and affecting all forms of human behaviours, skill, knowledge, attitude, personality, motivating, fear, mannerism etc.  Learning and maturation are two main processes through which changes in behaviour occur.  Learning may occur intentionally or unintentionally, through organized activity.

            Every individual learns, and through learning he develops the modes of behaviour by which he lives.  All human activities and achievements manifest the result of learning.

            Ralph (1957) referred learning as:

            “Learning is the process by which behaviour (in the broad sense) is originated or changed through practice of learning.”

(Ralph, 1957: p. 11)

  

            Louis (1976) referred learning process as:

 

            “Learning is a permanent relatively behavioural change that occurs in a result of reinforced practice.”

(Louis, 1976: p. 29)

  What is Disability?

            Learning Disability is a generic term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning or mathematics. These disorders are intrinsic to the individuals and presumed to be due to central nervous system dysfunction. Even though a learning disability may occur concomitantly with other handicapping conditions (e.g sensory impairment, mental retardation, social and emotional disturbance) or environmental influence (e.g cultural differences, insufficient or inappropriate instructions, psychogenic factors). It is not the direct result of these conditions or influences.

  According to the Random House Dictionary of the English, language is:

            “Lack of competent power, strength or physical or mental ability, incapacity.”

(Akhtar, 1993: p. 1)

            The recently designed term “Learning Disability” side steps the lack of hope and other stigma associated with such terms as retardation, brain, damaged or slow. A variety of factors led to this designation historically, most of them are social. These children generally come from middle class families indeed. “Learning disabled” is the category in which middle class children are most likely to be placed if they are judged to require a special education program. The category was introduced in U.S schools in the 1960’s as one of the means of explaining a handicapping condition which many professionals and middle class parents considered unaddressed by existing educational classification. Many professionals and middle class parents thought that special education classification such as “mentally retarded” or “emotionally disabled” and prevailing social science categories for explaining academic failure such as “cultural deprived” seemed more appropriate for children from minorities and poor communities, not children from the middle class.

The variety of problems afflicting minority groups and the poor were said to affect the emotions and intellect of children in ways that explained their difficulties in school. An applicable but different application was needed for children who had grown up in the suburbs, with the advantage of middle class life and who despite their academic problems, often appeared good learners outside of school.

The “Learning Disability” explanation was that the problem was caused not by retardation or other exclusionary factors but by a minor neurological “glitch” made sense to many.

The explanation also offered different advantages to different interests: it was less pejorative than other special education categories and it did not consider or criticize the role of school, families, other social influences that might have led in creating the learning disability.   

Though the problem of learning disabilities today is considered to be wide spread and not restricted to any particular socio economic group. In 1970, in a survey conducted by the NCES, principals of 2000 public and elementary schools filled out a questionnaire regarding how many of their students had specific learning disabilities based on the definition of the U.S Congress. The definition provided towards this goal reads:

“Those children who have a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which disorder may manifest in imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or do mathematical calculations.

Such disorder such conditions as perceptual handicaps, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia and developmental aphasia, such term does not include children who have learning problems, which are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or mature handicaps or mental retardation of emotional disturbance or environmental, cultural or economic disadvantage.“

(Hresko, 1978: p.4)

The National Advisory Committee on handicapped children which is a multidisciplinary group, prepared this definition in 1968 on which US federal legislation for the next decade was based:

“Children with special Learning Disabilities exhibit a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using spoken or written language. These may be manifested in disorders of listening, thinking, talking, reading, writing, spelling or arithmetic. They include conditions which have been referred to as perceptual handicaps, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, developmental aphasia.”

 (Learner, 1976: p.8)

Here in the definition they do not include learning problems which are primarily due to visual, hearing or motor handicaps, mental retardation, emotional disturbance or environmental disadvantage.

We have seen that some people in our community have difficulties, which other people do not have.  For example, some people have difficulty in seeing, whereas some people have difficulty in hearing, speaking, learning or moving around in the same way as others.  Some people show strange behaviour or have fits, or have no feeling in their hands and feet such difficulties are called disabilities.

We will find that some people with disabilities live in the way as others in our community.  But we will also find that because of their disabilities, some people have problems.  They have problems doing all the daily activities that other family and community members do.

            In this respect, a small group of concerned parents and educators had met in Chicago to consider linking the isolated parent groups active in a few communities into a single organization.

            Each of these parent groups had identified the children of concern under a different name including perceptually handicapped, brain injured and neurologically impaired.  If the groups were to unite, they needed to agree on a single term to identify the children.  When the term “learning disabilities” was suggested at this meeting, it met with immediate approval.

            “The organization today known as the association for children and adults with learning disabilities was born at this historic meeting.”

(Learner, 1988: p. 6)

What is Difference between Impairment, Disability and Handicapped?

              Impairment, disability and handicapped are commonly used and related terms.  David & Thomas elaborated the distinctions between them:  

Impairment: is a neutral term to mean the loss of structure of function (such as hearing loss).

Disability:    is the impact of the impairment (for example, poor speech may be the result of a hearing loss).

Handicap:     is the impact of the impairment or disability as a result of other’s negative evaluation of it. (For example, poor speech becomes a handicap if it causes others to be patronizing).

            Disability and handicap have different connotations although my computer-based grammar, check program tells me that I should replace ‘handicap’ with disability!

(Ann, 1995: p. 8)

Neurological Dysfunction

            Although not always stated directly, implied in many of the definitions is the idea that learning disabilities are related to a typical brain function.  Since all learning originates within the brain the presumption is that a disorder is learning can be caused by control nervous system dysfunction.  Educational and environmental events can of course, modify the process of learning and intelligence brain function making it worse of better.  In many cases the neurological condition is difficult, if not impossible to ascertain by medical examination or external medical tests often therefore the central nervous system dysfunction is presumed and determined through observation of behaviour.

            “Many children of normal or above normal intelligence have great difficulty learning how to read, write or work with numbers.”

(Learner, 1988: p. 9)

            They see and hear perfectly well, but they have trouble processing what comes through the senses.  As one child said, “I know it in my head, but I can’t get it into my hand” often thought of as “underachievers”.  Such children are said to have a learning disability a disorder that interferes in some way with school achievement.

            The problem is common, affecting as many as 30 percent of all school children, or an estimated 1.8 million students.  Since success in school is important or self-esteem, learning disabilities can have devastating effects on the psyche as well as on the report card.

            Dozens of different disorders affect one or more aspects of the learning process.  Adam, for example, has problems with visual perception.  He confuses up and down and left and right, so that he has great difficulty learning how to read and do arithmetic.  Barbara has problems with auditory perception.  She cannot grasp what the teacher is saying when he stands up in front of the room. Charles has difficulties with small-motor coordination. He cannot color inside the lines, or draw and write clearly.

                                                                          (Sally, 1986: p. 267)

  Definitions of Learning Disabilities

            According to Gearheart and Gearheart (1989), many newcomers in the field of learning disabilities are confused by attention and considerable conflict about the definition of learning disabilities.  Some believe that this may be a situation involving disagreements among various professional disciplines and vested interest in some remedial.

            “Some researchers have suggested that many of the students called learning disabled are really slow learners in average schools, average learners in high achieving schools, students with second language problems, or that may simply be behind in their work because they are absent frequently or have to change school often.”

(Woolfolk, 1998: pp. 142, 143)

            How do you explain what is wrong with a student who is not mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed, or educationally deprived, who has normal vision, hearing and language capabilities and who still cannot learn to read, write or compute?  On explanation is that the student has a learning disability.  This is a relatively new and controversial category of exceptional students.

            There is no fully agreed upon definition. A group of parents and professionals, “The National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities” proposes the following definition:

            “Learning disabilities is a general term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifest by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities.  These disorders are intrinsic to the individual presumed to be due to control nervous system dysfunction and may occur across the life span.”

            This definition eliminates references to older terms such as brain injury or minimal brain dysfunction and indicates that learning disabilities may pose a life long challenge.  Most definitions agree that learning disabled students are at least average in intelligence, but have significant academic problems and perform significantly below what would be expected.

1.                  According to Learner (1991), learning disability can be defined as the individual has a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological process.  (These processes refer to mental abilities, such as memory auditory perception, visual perception, oral language and thinking).

2.                  DeRuiter and Wansart (1982) referred learning disabilities as:

“Learning disabled individual suffer from a breakdown in the learning process.”

(DeRuiter and Wansart, 1982: p. 2)

3.                  According to Learner (1983), learning disabilities are result in significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning and mathematical skills.

4.                  Smith (1991) referred that:

“Specific learning disability means a disorder on one or more understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or to do mathematical calculations”.

(Smith, 1991: p. 11)

5.                  According to Learner (1985), the problem is intrinsic to the individual learning disability are due to factor within the person rather than to external factors such as the environment or educational system.

The Federal Definition

            National Information Centre of Children and Youth referred learning disabilities as:

            Specific learning disabilities means these children who have a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using language spoken or written which may manifest itself in imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or to do mathematical calculations.  The term includes such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia (reading, writing problem) and developmental aphasia. Such term does not include children who have learning problem which are primarily the result of visual, hearing or motor disabilities of mental retardation, of emotional disturbances or of environmental, cultural or economic disadvantage.

(Johnson & Morasky, 1977: p. 7; Bender, 1997: p. 71;

Kirk & Gallagher, 1986: p. 362)

Dyslexia

            The condition known as dyslexia is an unusual type of severe reading disorder that has puzzled the educational and medical professions for many years.  People with this baffling disorder have extreme difficulty recognizing letters and words and interpreting what is seen visually or heard auditorily.  Many of these individuals are intelligent in other ways.  For example, they may have very strong mathematics skills.

            People with dyslexia often find unique ways to hide their disabilities and ingenious methods of coping with their inability to read some times even their close associates never respect the truth.  Dyslexia is linked to a neurological dysfunction.  Recent research in the neurosciences provides support for the hypothesis of a linkage between dyslexia and a neurobiological abnormality in brain function.

            Recent studies show that some dyslexia individuals have a different anatomical brain structure and there is a genetic basis for dyslexia.                                         (Vichi & Ericha, 1997: p. 38)

   

Aphasia

            Problems of language disorders are sometimes referred to as childhood aphasia or developmental.

            Acquired aphasia is a medical term used to identify adults who lose the ability to speak because of brain damage due to a stroke.

(Learner, 1988: p. 19)

            Aphasia – meaning loss of memory – a different sort of condition and, of course, an indefensible error.  It is a coined word which by derivation means loss of speech and some dictionaries still confine it to this narrow meaning.

            In the earlier medical literature it was expanded to cover not only loss of ability to speak but loss of the ability to understand the spoken word, although often these two conditions were differentiated by the use of the qualifying adjectives, motor and sensory, respectively.

(Samuel, 1937: p. 35)

            Many medical writers of today use it as a broad general term to cover all losses in the use of language including reading and writing as well as speaking and understanding speech.

Characteristics of Learning Disabilities

            According to Learner (1992), students with learning disabilities exhibit a variety of learning and behavioral traits and no individual will display all of them.  Some students have disability in mathematics, whereas other excels in mathematics.  Attention disorders and non-verbal learning disabilities are symptomatic problems for many students with learning disabilities are not for all.  Further, certain kinds of characteristics are more likely to be exhibited at certain age levels.  Some of them are written as under:

Memory Disorders

            Gearhart and Gearheart (1989) referred that:

            “This may include either auditory or visual memory.  Memory is a complex process and is not fully understood, although some researchers have established theories that seem to explain the various observable facts of memory.  Auditory memory deficit seriously affects the learning process.”

(Gearheart & Gearheart, 1989: pp. 141-142)

Disorders of Attention

            Students with attention problem may not focus when a lesson being presented, have short attention span, be easily distracted, and have poor concentration ability.  They also may be hyperactive or impulsive.  Students with learning disabilities with these characteristics may have coexisting attention-deficit disorders (ADD).

Poor Motor Ability

            Some children with learning disabilities have difficulty with progress motor abilities and fine motor coordination, and they exhibit general awkwardness and clumsiness and have spatial problems.

Psychological Process Deficits and Information Processing Problems

            Children with learning disabilities often have problems in processing auditory or visual information.  For example, many are poor in recognizing the sounds of language (phonological awareness), in quickly recognizing letters or words (visual perception) or in short memory short.

Failure to Develop and Mobilize Cognitive Strategize for Learning

            Students with learning disabilities do not know how to go about learning and studying.  They lack organization skills, have not developed an active learning style, and do not direct their own learning.

Oral Language Difficulties

            Many individuals with learning disabilities have basic underlying language disorders.  This characteristic appears with problems in listening, language development, speaking, vocabulary development and linguistic competencies.

Reading Difficulty

            About 80 percent of the students with learning disabilities in reading.  They have problems with learning decodes words, with basic word recognition skills or reading with comprehension.

Written Language Difficulty

            Writing is a very challenging task for many students with learning disabilities, and they do poorly in situations that require written work.

Mathematics Difficulties

            The major problem for some students with learning disabilities involves difficulties in quantitative thinking, arithmetic, time, space, and calculating facts.

Nonverbal Learning Disabilities

            The major problem for some individuals with learning disabilities involves social skills.  These individuals have not learned how to act and talk in social situation.

Combination of Disabilities

            Not infrequently deficits are observed that involve several areas of functioning with the result that the learning disability is referred to as visual motor, social-emotional or language communication.  There are several possibilities for such combinations based on discrepancies revealed by the evaluation of various kinds of responses or behaviors varying as to level of complexity.

            “Diagnostic personnel generally have little difficulty distinguishing between learning disabled children and those who are mentally retarded or normal, they do have difficulty discerning the learning disabled from low achieving students.”

(Harvey, 1983: pp. 198-201)

Types of Learning Disabilities

            The discrimination of learning disabilities centers about behavioural areas in which the deficit behaviours we described appear most frequently.  This does not imply that there is any general agreement on exactly what the areas are.  Indeed, there is much disagreement about which taxonomy of problems is most useful or most important.  But, almost universally, successful learning disability strategists offer some outline, list, or suggested hierarchy of most frequently encountered or most important problem areas.  There seem to be at least two major reasons for the discrepancies among lists.

            Delineating the broad areas in which learning disabilities are most commonly reported as interacting negatively with components of the elementary arithmetic curriculum, according to Johnson (1979) lists:

1.                  Memory

2.                  Visual and auditory discrimination.

3.                  Visual and auditory association.

4.                  Perceptual motor.

5.                  Spatial awareness and orientation.

6.                  Verbal expression,.

7.                  Closure and generalization.

8.                  Attention.

A group of elementary teachers, people experienced in working with learning-disabled children, to list the problems areas they seemed to encounter most frequently.  This group, accustomed to dealing more with actual problems than theoretical orientations, listed these eleven behaviours – which they define operationally as being learning disabilities rather than something else – as occurring most frequently in their classrooms.

1.                  A typical spelling errors.

2.                  Auditory discrimination problems.

3.                  Letter recognition problems.

4.                  Initial sound in words confusion.

5.                  Counting and number recognition difficulties.

6.                  Auditory memory deficits.

7.                  Visual memory deficits.

8.                  Gross motor in coordination.

9.                  Spatial disorientation.

10.             Articulation errors.

11.             Fine motor problems – usually perceived in handwriting.

(Johnson & Morasky, 1980: pp. 31-32)

DIAGRAM

(Kirk & Gallagher, 1986: p. 364)

Types of Learning Disabilities

     Dyslexia           Dyscalculia   Dysgraphia     Dysphasia

                                                                                                    (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) ADHD

   

Learning Disabilities at Different Levels

            According to Learner (1988):

Learning Disabilities at the Pre-school Level: (3 to 5 Years)

            Preschool children are inadequate motor development, language delays, speech disorders and poor cognitive and concept development.  Common examples of problems at the preschool level are the three years old, who cannot catch a ball, hop, jump or play with manipulative toys (poor motor development), the four year old, who does not use language to communicate, has a limited vocabulary and cannot understand (language and speech disorders) and the five year old, who cannot count up to ten, name colors, or work puzzles (poor cognitive development).

  Learning Disabilities at Elementary Level: (6 to 13 Years)

            In many children, learning disabilities first become apparent when they enter school and fail to acquire academic skills.  Often the failure occurs in reading, but it also happens in mathematics writing or other school subjects.  Among the behaviours frequently seen in the early elementary years are inability to attend and concentrate poor motor skills as evidenced in the awkward handling of a pencil and in poor writing and difficulty in learning to read.  In the latter elementary years, as the curriculum becomes more difficult, problems may emerge in other areas, such as social studies or science.

            Emotional problems also become more of an impediment after several years of repeated failure and students become more conscious of their poor achievement in comparison with peers.

            For some students, social problems and the ability to make and keep friends increase in importance at this age level.

Learning Disabilities at the Secondary Level: (14 to 18 years)

            There is a radical change in schooling at the secondary level, and adolescents find that learning disabilities begin to take a greater toll.  The tougher demands of the junior and senior high school curriculum and teachers, the turmoil of adolescence, and the continued academic failure are some times combine to intensify the learning disability.  Adolescents are also concerned about life after completing school.  They may need counseling and guidance for college, career and vocational decisions.  To worsen the situation a few adolescents find themselves draw into acts of juvenile delinquency.

Learning Disabilities in the Adults (Above 18 Years)

            By the time they finish schooling, many students either overcome their learning disabilities or reduce them so that, they no longer have a severe problem as adults in society.

            For others, however the problem continues and vestiges of their disorder hamper them as they grow older.  Difficulty in reading as well as social problems may limit their career development and also hinder them in making and keeping friends.  We are finding that:

            “Many adults are voluntarily seeking help in later life to cope with their learning disabilities.”

(Learner, 1992: pp. 15-16)

 Learning disabilities are not limited to the school years.  This table lists the problems that may occur during different phases of life and the treatments that have the strongest support from research or from expert teachers in the field.

  (Woolfolk, 1998: pp. 145-145)