F.A.T.

City
Problem Ownership
What might this look like for a student with learning disabilities?

Experiencing
Frustration and
Anxiety
Sarcasm creates a victim.
Anxiety affects performancehigh threat teaching/learning environment
Easier for students to quit than to contribute.
Students want to hide from teacher to avoid failing.
Contrary to creating brain friendly environment
Processing (Pace) Difficulty processing language, teaching pace can easily be too fast
LD students are still processing question while non-LD kids are processing an
answer.
Fast pace can manifest as disruption for students struggling to process language
Easy adaptations that can queue LD Students
Distraction Student pays attention to everything, cant tune anything out.
Risk-taking When risk of failure is high, students wont volunteer.
Surprises are negative experience.
Reasons not to volunteer informationrisk taking is not safe, ramifications later
in life.
1. No positive reinforcement
2. Always negative reinforcement: embarrassment.

General Notes/Suggested Accommodations

Visual Perception
(blurry picture)
Ways that teachers try to teach students with LDfallacies and ineffective.
1. Assume student is not trying.
2. Offer reward for doing something that the child cant do. Bribe kids to
learn
3. Begin taking things away from the child when they are struggling.
4. Victim blamingstudent isnt motivated enough
LDs have everything to do with perception and NOTHING to do with motivation
LD students need a teacher to provide direct instruction
We cant expect LD students to teach themselves. This is why mainstreaming is
so important.
Being the only student left out
Reading
Comprehension
(two stories, one
with known vocab,
one without)
Comprehension through vocabularythen assume student understands story
Comprehension has everything to do with background, not with vocabulary.
Assumption that student understands every vocabulary word that they will
understand the paragraph.
Complicate task that requires direct instruction
Visual Perception
(title for a story)
LD children will get into trouble and not know why. Because of perception
misperception of stimulus.
Nothing gives a teacher the right to destroy student work in front of them.

Visual Motor
(Handwriting in a
mirror)
Visual perception problemseyes and hands dont communicate
Visual motor integrationmakes writing process very challenging.
Can be simulated by tracing in a mirror
Oral Expression
(story without a
the letter n)
Dysnomia: word finding problem
Speaking is a cognitive task
Makes multitasking in the classroom very difficult.
Human brain responsible for storage and retrieval.
Problem between storage and retrieval
Things are used and then put back in the wrong place
Associative tasks vs. cognitive tasks
Hard to do many cognitive tasks, bit associative tasks can be done more than one
at a time.
Comes back to lack of time
1. LD students are quick to point out insufficiencies in others to draw
attention away from self and rationalize their differences.
2. High anxiety situationtime is a gift.
Reading and
Decoding
(Story with
interchangeable
pdbq)
Spatial orientation does not dictate perceptionuntil we learn letters
Rhetorical questions can be used against kids for intimidation
Decoding content becomes really challenging because all energy goes to decoding
wording.
Auditory and Visual
Capabilities
(Story understood
by listening)
Hearing needs to occur before understanding can take place.
Auditory vs. visual
Auditory input is really critical for aural learners
Direct instruction, recording books, etc.

Additional Notes:
Simulation: no right to pass, no role-playing
Definitions of exclusion when referring to children with disabilities
Problem ownership: no choice about disability, it just is.

What is fairness?
Laurence Kohlberg
Children learn by observation, parents/ teachers need to model good behavior.
Learn morals by what is seen

Fairnesseveryone getting what he or she needs, not everyone getting the same thing.
Teachers need to provide resources for students, as they need them, not only when everyone needs them.
To be fair, we need to treat children differently based on their needs.
Poor Self Esteemcan be offset by teachers
Dealing with schools as a parent of child with LD can be very frustrating
Real challenge is educating people without LDs

Differentiated classroom: celebrates learning differences