Understanding the typical life of a challenged learner (learning delayed)
Correspondent | Wednesday September 24, 2014 14:47
While some people might label that learner as “dull,” more people are becoming aware that the brain of a challenged learner may have learning delays. Jensen, E (2011) describes Learning Delayed (LD), as “a child’s failure to make the usual development milestones typical of his or her age.”
Learning Delayed presents itself in multiple disorders. I have come across learners who really struggle in basics skills such as hand writing, simple mathematical calculations and recalling information.
Challenged Learners in higher education can be quite frustrated, when presented with a curriculum that expects them to have a higher degree of analytical and innovative skills.
While some functions such as thinking, motor skills and emotional development may be impaired, others are only just preserved. With the right attitude and interventions, many children who are “delayed” catch up later.
What really causes Learning Delays?
In our mainstream schools, Challenged Learners are mostly those with preserved functions and below are some common factors contributing to Delayed Learning:
Inadequate parental support
Even though research shows that children perform better when they get support from home, inadequate parental support is quite prevalent in our schools.
Another disturbing factor is that children are increasingly getting exposed to situations such as loss of loved ones (grief), substance abuse and a whole lot of other dysfunctional family situations.
I remember this incident when I had a learner coming to me for help a few minutes before an external examination. The learner had lost somebody who was close to her and had since tried drinking as a means of dealing with grief.
The challenge intensified when she experienced serious flashbacks of the person she had lost, on the day she was going to write the exam. I was given 15 minutes by my client to help her “get rid of the flashbacks” because they interfered with her exam preparation. The client expressed how terrified she was of the flashbacks.
Collectively, we had to do what we could to deal with her emotions in 15 minutes before she rushed into the examination room. Unfortunately, this client did not come back to continue with the therapy or even give feedback on the rushed earlier intervention. Flashbacks are basically sudden, usually powerful, mental slides of a past traumatic experience and substance use does not help to erase the flashbacks from the mind. Traumatic experiences do play a role in Delayed Learning.
Children with Learning Delays often lose confidence and self-esteem and develop dependency syndrome on their teachers. They dread trying tasks on their own because they fear they might fail.
Some of them resort to copying, as a means of surviving during class tests. Such a learner’s progress can notably be elevated by parents and teachers working closely to support the learner without pushing too hard. Those whose learning has been delayed due to brain impairments would have typically had some of the experiences indicated below:
Fetal alcohol syndrome
It appears that, in spite of health warnings on all alcoholic beverage containers, it is becoming increasingly common for expectant mothers to consume alcohol and smoke cigarettes, hence exposing their unborn babies to toxins. Ethanol is said to have greater toxic effects on the brain of the unborn child than most substances, as it hinders the growth of the brain during pregnancy. Ethanol therefore causes mental retardation. Brain development is crucial to an individual’s ability to learn.
Prenatal drug exposure
Most physicians and other health workers urge pregnant women to abstain from alcohol, but they seem to overlook the need to spread the message that over-the-counter medications are also a risk factor for unborn babies.
Some expectant mothers also have the tendency of using such medications, probably out of ignorance. I am not a health worker but sometimes I wonder if it is okay for vendors to sell pain killers from home.
Head injuries
I know a few children who had Learning Delays due some head injuries they experienced during playtime, in their early childhood. A child can get brain injury while falling from a tree, a bike or while diving.
Abuse and neglect
Research shows that abuse is one of the primary contributing factors to Learning Delays. It is also evident in schools that failure of parents or guardians to take care of children’s emotional and educational needs is on the rise.