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LD
By Nikki

Hi... I'm an ED/LD resource teacher who also does the testing/observations of students referred for special ed. services. (Some districts have diagnosticians who do all of this, some don't.) I have to say that I'm quite surprised
by Jill's "signs of LD" ----> Immature emotionally and socially. "Spacey": Look of disorientation. Can't make choices. Can't stay with an activity. Distractible. Impulsive. Knows rules but does not apply. Labile emotions; excessive silliness; catastrophic reactions; angry; shy or withdrawn
Having a learning disability has NOTHING to do with immaturity, focusing, being distractible/impulsive,

or being "silly"..... A learning disability is where a student has average intelligence, but because of some type of processing deficit, that child is unable to or has great difficulty with learning (new) tasks... If you want to look at a student that might have an EMOTIONAL instability, maybe then some of the "excessive silliness, impulsivity, distractibility" factors come in to play, but NOT for a child that is LD. I have 6 (out of 12) LD students on my case load, and none of them are behavior problems. These students have difficulty memorizing facts, some reverse numbers/letters (which gets into the POSSIBILITY of dyslexia), usually have difficulty retaining multi-step directions/steps (you see this especially in math) ...... It is simply not "The student did not learn this year..." The testing needs to indicate whether there is a processing defecit and whether the child is capable of grade level work.... If this child has not been making progress all year, why did you wait until the last few days of school to worry about this? I don't know the entire situation, but if this child has been struggling even the first semester, I would have put some interventions in place....does your school/district utilize Collaborative Intervention Teams that discuss strategies or reasons why a student is not performing? If the child is truly "LD", retaining him/her in my opinion is hurting more than helping....another year in the same grade is not going to help.... this child needs to be evaluated, and if he/she qualifies for a program, he/she would be supported in that next grade, and if the child's skills are extremely low, the special ed teacher should be teaching him/her at their instructional level.

Kids with learning disabilities have low self-esteem. They think they are dumb, need as much positive reinforcement and praise (if not more) than any other child. They want to feel that they belong, and want to be accepted by their peers.... I don't believe in promoting students just for self-esteem, but if this child DOES have a learning disability, holding them back is just adding fuel to the fire.....

In my state, there are new criteria for ED/LD. I'm sure if you spoke to a special ed teacher/administrator in your building/district, you could get ahold of what to look for when referring a student for ED/LD instead of thinking that if they are "excessively silly" they must be LD....