Dale Brown gives a number of practical suggestions based on her own experiences. The problems of people with learning disabilities are diverse, and so should be the solutions. Changing your own (or your child's) behavior can make a big difference in success at work or school. First of all try to provide encouragement. Dale Brown has this to say about her experience growing up as a child with a disability.
"People with a visible disability are given positive reinforcement for what they can do. We admire the person in a wheelchair who travels around the country in a motorized van or the blind television talk-show host; the blind person who learns cane mobility receives positive reinforcement from the teacher. On the other hand, people with invisible handicaps are expected to attain the norm without effort. They rarely receive credit for their attempts; they are criticized for having trouble in the first place." Click here to read the entire article.
While her article discusses people with learning disabilities, we have found many of the same modifications may be used for people with different disabilities. For example, whether the problem is that you cannot write your answers to an exam because you have a learning disability, because you have a physical disability that involves your hands, or because you are blind, in all of those cases, taking the test orally would be an acceptable solution.
| PROBLEM | MODIFICATION |
| Cannot remember a sequence of instructions, such as "First thing every morning, take out your spelling book and write your spelling words three times each on a sheet of notebook paper. Then, put the paper in this in-basket and take a copy of the next day's work from the basket on the left." | Write down instructions. It doesn't matter if no one else does. Carry a notebook with you and write down everything you need to remember, in order. |
For more on classroom modifications, click here