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Whichever estimate is :
-. “we're talking about a large
‘number of children” and the

“This has been a long time
coming and it’s very much over-

due,”? Andrew Scruton, Director

of Special Education for School
District 88. These were
Scruton’s opening words as he
addressed about 40-people who
turned out at a recent meeting

‘organized by the newly formed
Terrace Chapter of the Learning
_ Disability Association of B.C.

by Tod Strachan

According to Scruton, there
are varying opinions of just how

common learning disabilities
are, but the most conservative

estimate would indicate about 60
of the 5,300 students in the
school district are affected and
the most expanded estimate
would indicate there could be as
many as 700.

The most commonly accepted

' figure in Canada is 10 percent,

which would set the number at

- 530, but Scruton says the

number doesn’t really matter.
used,

majority of thei haven’t even
been diagnosed.

Scruton says this is the most
disturbing part of earning
disabilities. “‘Their handicap is
totally invisible and often they
are labelled as something other
than handicapped, and the most

commonly used. label is lazy;”’ -

he said.
“There’s a great need/to

-recognize the learning disabled

child for who he is — for some-

body who does have a handicap.

And part of the problem of the
identification process is that
learning disabilities cover an
enormous spectrum of dis-
abilities.”’

Hyperactivity is one possible
symptom, says Scruton, but this
one category alone takes a lot of
forms. He says that in one form
it falls into the class of ‘‘atten-

tion deficit disorders’? or chil-

dren who are very easily dis-
tracted. ‘But,’ he explained,
“they’re not children who just
run around — they’re children
who have a very high level of
distractability."’

Help for learning disa

He said these children are
easily identified as having a
‘problem’? because they have
behavior problems. But the
parents or teacher may not link
the bad behavior to a learning
disability, and discipline will not
necessarily change things. The
student would have to be
diagnosed as having a learning
disability and taught to deal with
it before behavior would im-
prove,

But the one category of learn-
ing disabilities that concerns
Scruton the most, and is much
less obvious to the observer, are
severe reading disabilities.
“Some people call them dyslexic
but I happen to feel that’s a
rather over-used term,’’ he said.

However, Scruton says the
area of severe reading dis-
abilities has been heavily  re-
searched over the past few years
and educators are now aware
that there are a variety of
categories in this particul
disorder.

- He said the most common isa -

difficulty in sound/symbol rela-
tionships. This most often be-
gins in the very early grades, and
the child has extreme difficulty
learning to read and is unable to

‘learn how to write.

But as the child grows older,
Scruton said, the problem seems
to disappear because they learn
to recognize words and use con-
text clues — but they are still
unable. to spell words. “Their
spelling is nearly always a life-
long problem,”’ he said.

Scruton said the situation is
improving, and students with
learning disabilities are now per-
mitted to use computers or take
oral examinations to improve
the communication of their
knowledge, but there are two
“bugs”? in the system that

prevents the identification and ¢

proper help for too many learn-
ing disabled children.

The first is funding. Funding
for learning disabled students
has traditionally been done on a
needs basis. But in an attempt to
lower education costs, the pro-
vincial government recently

continued on page 14

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Ed Gordon, executive Director of the Learming Disability Association of B.C. (left), Terrace
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Andrew Scruton were three of the resource people present at a recent meeting to explore

cane “Terrace Review — Wednesday, June 8, 1988 7

bled ‘very much overdue’

establishing a Terrace branch of the association.

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