LD Blog

Writing in the San Luis Obispo (CA, US) Tribune, Mary Ross used Learning Disabilities to make a political point. She gave a definition of LD that was either her own or drawn from an uncited source, used it to make a veiled reference to US president, George W. Bush, and then expressed her hope that the then newly elected US Congress will take control of government. Regardless of whether one agrees with Ms. Ross’ ppolitical statement, if one’s concerned about Learning Disabilities, it’s important to examine her description of LD.

Learning disability: The individual will display inadequacies in intellectual, social and psychological activities because of disrupted processes in cognition. The individual’s frame of reference is not the reality of any given situation but rather their skewed perception based on how their brains receive and process information.

There are a few dozen more words in Ms. Ross’ description, but these are enough to make me question the reliability of the source on which she based her argument. It may be that Ms. Ross is using “intellectual” as a synonym for “academic”; if so, choosing “academic” would be much better. If she is using “intellectual” in the sense of capacity to reason or think, it’s a flatly inaccurate characterization of LD. As a matter of definition, LD does not include intellectual inadequacy.

Perhaps I should simply chalk this example of the mischaracterization of LD up to hasty writing (goodness knows, I’ve been guilty of mistakes), but I still want to catch these sorts of mistakes when I encounter them. In my opinion, we need to ensure that LD isn’t lost because it has been diluted and misunderstood.

Link to Ms. Ross’ editorial. There is also an entry in Maxine’s Radio Weblog that quotes part of Ms. Ross’ editorial.