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LD label'
can hurt
To the Editor:
I’m puzzled. In her letter (Oct. 8), Catherine Cieslak tells me that indifference is simply a behavioral problem, not a learning disability, the implication being that the two are easy to distinguish if one only does some reading on the subject.
Then, the following week, Ellen Joback lectures that behavior prob-, terns are one of the symptoms q( learning disabilities. Even more puzzling is Ms. Joback’s uncertainty of learning disability demographics? "... at least seven percent and a$ much as 15 to 20 percent of all elementary school children. ” *
Don’t the “experts” know? Why don’t they just count them? The impression I get from these two letters, and the articles I read, is that the definition of a learning disability, is in the eye of the beholder.
But consider: if seven percent of a school population of, say, 1,000 sniffer
from “minimal brain disfunction^ (Ms. Joback’s low figure), and educa-! tors choose a definition encompaa sing 20 percent of the students (her, high figure), then for the 70 student^ who are helped by special ed classes (assuming for the moment the classes really help), 130 nomral children are doomed to sit through wha$ have to be boring special ed classes, their expectations lowered and their, self confidence injured by insensitive labels such as Ms. Joback’s “LD child.”
Finally, if, as Ms. Cieslak says, volunteers can help with this “mini-! mal” problem, why not ask the child’s parents to volunteer? They* after all, bear some responsibility in the matter.
BILL FITZSIMONS
Flint Hill
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