Un Learning Disability

How do high school students confront and resolve conflicting messages about their intelligence and academic potential, particularly when labeled with social and learning disabilities? How does disability become “disablement” when negative attitudes and disparaging perceptions of ability position students as outsiders? Following the lives of adolescents at home and at school, the author makes visible the disabling language, contextual arrangements, and unconscious social practices that restrict learning regardless of special education services. She also showcases how young people resist disablement to transform their worlds and pursue pathways most important to them. Educators and scholars can use this important resource to recognize and change disabling practices that are often taken for granted as a natural part of schooling. Book Features: Offers concrete ways that students, schools, and teachers can unlearn disabling behaviors. Illuminates how social processes of disablement take place, rather than simply describing their influence. Looks at settings where students encounter more flexible ideas of ability and intelligence. “AnnMarie Baines shows us how LD can be rephrased, readdressed, and reworked. LD can be a good idea again, but the labels have to be tied to conditions of growth, identity enhancement, and institutional change.” —From the Foreword by Ray McDermott, professor, Stanford Graduate School of Education "Through compelling narrative vignettes and clear expository commentary, the author makes a persuasive case that adolescents' ‘abilities’ and ‘disabilities’ are situational, not fixed. The moral of her stories is this: change the social situations of learning to foreground and affirm ability rather than disability.” —Frederick Erickson, George F. Kneller Professor of Anthropology of Education, emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles “This book will touch everyone. The stories ring with familiar pain, strategies of persistence, and the randomness of what counts for success or failure. Valuable resources are lost to labels given too lightly for far too many; this volume tells us how to recoup and to protect these resources and to restore hope by doing so.” —Shirley Brice Heath, Margery Bailey Professor of English and Dramatic Literature and professor of linguistics, emerita, Stanford University AnnMarie Darrow Baines is an assistant professor in the department of secondary education at San Francisco State University.

How do high school students confront and resolve conflicting messages about their intelligence and academic potential, particularly when labeled with social and learning disabilities? How does disability become "disablement" when negative attitudes and disparaging perceptions of ability position students as outsiders? Following the lives of adolescents at home as well as in and out of school, the author makes visible the disabling language, contextual arrangements, and unconscious social practices that restrict learning regardless of special education services. She also showcases how young people resist disablement to transform their worlds and pursue pathways most important to them. Educators can use this important resource to recognize and change disabling practices that are often taken for granted as a natural part of schooling.

How do high school students confront and resolve conflicting messages about their intelligence and academic potential, particularly when labelled with social and learning disabilities? How does disability become "disablement" when negative attitudes and disparaging perceptions of ability position students as outsiders? Following the lives of adolescents at home and at school, the author makes visible the disabling language, contextual arrangements, and unconscious social practices that restrict learning regardless of special education services. She also showcases how young people resist disablement to transfrom their worlds and pursue pathways most important to them. Educators and scholars can use this important resource to recognize and change disabling practices that are often taken for granted as a natural part of schooling.

Learning disabilities are among the most common disabilities experienced in childhood and adulthood. Although identifying learning disabilities in a school setting is a complex process, it is particularly challenging in low- and middle-income countries that lack the appropriate resources, tools, and supports. This guide provides an introduction to learning disabilities and describes the processes and practices that are necessary for the identification process. It also describes a phased approach that countries can use to assess their current screening and evaluation services, as well as determine the steps needed to develop, strengthen, and build systems that support students with learning disabilities. This guide also provides intervention recommendations that teachers and school administrators can implement at each phase of system development. Although this guide primarily addresses learning disabilities, the practices, processes, and systems described may be also used to improve the identification of other disabilities commonly encountered in schools.

Since the defeat of the Nazi Third Reich and the end of its horrific eugenics policies, battles over the politics of life, sex, and death have continued and evolved. Dagmar Herzog documents how reproductive rights and disability rights, both latecomers to the postwar human rights canon, came to be seen as competing--with unexpected consequences. Bringing together the latest findings in Holocaust studies, the history of religion, and the history of sexuality in postwar--and now also postcommunist--Europe, Unlearning Eugenics shows how central the controversies over sexuality, reproduction, and disability have been to broader processes of secularization and religious renewal. Herzog also restores to the historical record a revelatory array of activists: from Catholic and Protestant theologians who defended abortion rights in the 1960s-70s to historians in the 1980s-90s who uncovered the long-suppressed connections between the mass murder of the disabled and the Holocaust of European Jewry; from feminists involved in the militant "cripple movement" of the 1980s to lawyers working for right-wing NGOs in the 2000s; and from a handful of pioneers in the 1940s-60s committed to living in intentional community with individuals with cognitive disability to present-day disability self-advocates.

A paradigm-shifting book looking at the pervasive influence of silence and how we can begin to dismantle it in order to find our voices at home and at work Having a seat at the table doesn’t mean that your voice is actually welcome. Knowing something is wrong doesn't mean it's easy to speak up. In fact, there are incentives for many of us to stay silent. Why speak up if you know that it won’t be received well, and in fact, often makes things worse? In Unlearning Silence, Hering explores how we’ve learned to be silent, how we’ve benefited from silence, how we’ve silenced other people—and how we might choose another way. She teaches how to recognize and unlearn unconscious patterns so we can make more intentional choices about how we want to show up in at home and at work. Only by unlearning silence can we more fully unleash talent, speak our minds, and be more complete versions of ourselves… and help other people do the same. With compassion, clarity, and understanding, Hering guides readers through real-life examples and offers a concrete road map for doing this vital and challenging work.

This book aims to raise awareness about the possibility of achieving the goals of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), in order for all disabled people to enjoy the benefit of human rights. The stories of people who have been supported to enjoy their rights and their citizenship will enable readers to focus on how services and support can enable people with a learning disability to have their rights upheld, with an outcome of citizenship, independence and achievement. Despite the UNCRDP being in place since 2006, a significant number of learning disability service provider organisations and professionals in the UK are not aware of its existence. This book aims to bridge the gap between policy and practice to demonstrate the value of a human rights approach as the foundation for services and support for people with a learning disability.

In the field of learning difficulties there has been a revolution in professional understanding and user aspirations towards delivery of services. Institutional models no longer prevail; language, attitudes and practices have been transformed. Full of up-to-date case studies, practice examples and points for reflection, this exciting textbook explores how to embed this culture shift into mainstream services. It explores theoretical frameworks for working with people with learning difficulties and examines the role of services and the social worker, drawing on person-centred, community-centred and family involvement perspectives. Essential reading for anyone studying social work or nursing people with learning difficulties.