In every new generation, there are more kids who are diagnosed with a learning disability such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. Unfortunately, there are no cures for learning disabilities, but by the federal law there are programs at every single school, which may involve Title I, or just known as an “LD” place. These programs include the accommodations of getting extended time on tests, getting the test read to them, getting tutoring, and getting scholarships for college. Kids with learning disabilities are still very bright, and have the average or above average IQ score. It's just that their brains tend to comprehend things in a different order. There is nothing to be ashamed of with having a learning disability either. They should be embraced, because it shows us everyone can’t have the same brains, otherwise we would all be categorized as robots. To me it’s like choosing the side streets rather than just going on the highway to go somewhere, because in the end, either way you’re still going to make it. It’s just that you might be there a few minutes later than if you would’ve taking the highway.
Now, if we go back before the 1970s all of these accommodations for learning disabilities never existed. They weren’t even called “learning disabilities.” You were looked as an inhuman who needed to be locked away in an institution, and left there to be tortured for this. This all ended in 1970 where over the next twenty years people were helping to make improvements to what should be done with people who have learning disabilities. In the 1990s, thanks to the People First Movement and other self-advocacy groups, people with learning disabilities can get the treatment they rightfully deserve. The institutions were finally shut down back in 2001.
I was very surprised to find out when I was younger that people with learning disabilities in the past would be instituted. This may explain why some people I know in my parents' generation were never able to go to college, or just barely made it out of high school. I don’t often hear about an adult with a learning disability, like I do with all sorts of kids today. I remember looking in my mom’s yearbook once, before the LD program was around, I saw the special education group in there, and my mom told me “Those kids in there had some serious head problems, and were very bizarre.” This just showed me how much really has changed within the past 20 years of not just looking at kids who appear to be “different” as freaks, but as decent human beings with a dignity. I am truly thankful for this Human Rights Act, because if it weren’t for this I would probably be in an institution like a mad woman right now. What this boils down to at the end of the day, is that no one should diss your ability to learn the things that you are taught.
