1st class

Compare with my American classmates, I have little background knowledge about learning disability. Therefore, I fell really behind when everybody else has at least a general idea of what ADD,BD and ADHD are while they make little sense to me. These are just something we haven't begun to talk about in mainland China, or, more precisely, in the area I come from. As a result, I felt silly about some of my questions or comments, such as the question I asked Melissa “Can learning disability be cured like other deseases or no?" By the way, I found it sound awful once I uttered it. 

Fortunately, we started the conversation by clarifying the concepts and categories of learning disability. It definitely helped me catch up a little bit. It really impressed me when subtypes of learning disability were identified, such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia. They explain to me much clearer about what learning disability is, or, at least, what the symptoms look like. 

But, at the same time, what puzzled me was if they really exist. According to Dr. Gerber, LD happens to 5% to 10% of the population, which means that, in average, there should be one person with LD among 10 to 20 people. However, I have never encountered or heard about anyone like this in my 22-year life experience before I come to America. Although I had some classmates who just cannot get good grades, it was generally believed that they didn't work hard enough. No one thought that they might have some biological challenges in their brains. Also, they were not as bad as the example Dr. Gerber provided. Anyway, learning disability seems to a new idea that I need to buy in. 

The video we saw in the end of the class helped me get more understanding of dyslexia vividly. I began to regard dyslexia as myopia. Both of them are resulted from biological issues and cause inconvenience or problems in people's daily life, and I believe people may get them since born. Nowadays, all kind of tool, such as glasses, contacts and surgeries, have been developed to support people with myopia so that they can function well and do what they can do. As to learning disability,  we are still in the process of creating the suitable support for people with it. There is no reason to devaluate them, just as we do not devaluate people who wear glasses. 

One of the question I have about LD is where it comes from. Are people born with it, or they can also get it later in their life? I hope the questions will be answered later in our class.