Vocational School of Justice
‘LEARNING DISABILITY SHOULD NOT CAUSE COLD FEET FROM SCHOOL’
The new academic year has started for millions of students after a long summer holiday. The experts state that educators and parents have major responsibility, and students with learning disabilities who were not diagnosed early, experienced difficulties and got cold feet about going to school.
Ezgi Oral, Lecturer at Child Development Program, Vocational School of Health Services, Izmir University of Economics, stated that in the event of unidentified learning disabilities such as dyslexia (reading and related language-based processing skills), dysgraphia (handwriting ability and fine motor skills), and dyscalculia (ability to understand numbers and learn math facts), children got cold feet about going to school. Oral, who reported that child’s school readiness and academic maturity affected success, mentioned that it was important to get to know children at early age and provide the necessary support. Oral said, “Diagnosis may be delayed because of educators and doctors misleading from time to time, or families failing to notice or neglecting the disorder. This has a clear effect on child’s school success. Lack of self-containment causes the child to avoid going to school.”
‘Don’t let children get affected’
Learning disability is reduced intellectual ability in acquiring and using speaking, listening, writing, math, and reasoning skills, reported Oral. She said that academic failure affected the child’s life, and therefore, educators and parents needed to watch their children closely. Oral indicated that individuals with learning disabilities had regular or above regular mental intelligence. She said, “Families and educators find it difficult to understand why a student falls behind in class; fails to learn how to read and write, does not want to do homework even though he/she is very talented and intelligent. Children, who are academically challenged, feel they are different than peers, have disrupted relations with parents and teachers, display behavioral problems. They turn into children with low self-esteem who cannot express themselves and experience failure all the time. Children experiencing these problems feel cold towards school in time and they do not want to go to school”.