Poor Academic Achievement Associated With Mental Retardation free essay sample

Differentiation among categories of children having mild disabilities including mild mental retardation, learning disabilities as well as behavioral and emotional disorders has been problematic. Children operating around the fringe of what might be interpreted a disability group establish problems in measurement, assessment and admission for specialized education programs. A large number of children can be recognized as poor performers in schools. Basing this notion on an ordinary distribution one could possibly argue that fifty percent of kids function below standard academically. Greshman Macmillan and Bocian defined two major forms of reading underachievement complexities: specific reading retardation (SRR) and general reading backwardness (1996). SRR is described as reading under the predicted level from a childs aptitude whereas GRB is described as studying below the predicted level of childs sequential age. Children having SRR may also be thought to have specific learning disabilities. Children having SLDs comprise 5.2 percent of the overall school populace and 51. We will write a custom essay sample on Poor Academic Achievement Associated With Mental Retardation or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page 1 percent of the school age populace with disabilities (Greshman, Macmillan and Bocian, 1996). Numerous children who suffer from these symptoms are also unable to differentiate or understand the nature of their ailment. Personal Perspective A friend, who is also a college student, is having problems with her grades.   She frequently feels that no matter how hard she studies, it doesn’t show when it’s time to take the test. As a result of this, her grades for the last two years have only been C’s, D’s and the occasional F.   She claims that she studies by reading the chapters and printing out professor’s lecture when it’s availed. In spite of this, she still feels like nothing is registering in terms improving academic performance. She claims to forget what has been taught most of the times and sometimes fails to remember what she just read. Then would have to repeat something’s just to get a clear understanding. She feels like no matter how hard she tries, she’ll never be as smart as some of her classmates. They seem to make better grades than her without much effort.   She wonders where she is going wrong and what she could possibly do to get better grades.   She said she feels dim-witted, when she receives her grades. She said she sometimes feels like she shouldn’t even study at all, why put forth the effort if it’s not going to make a difference.   She said she doesn’t know what else to do. Differences between LD and LA This ambiguity has created a heated contest has been   concerning the differences and similarities between children categorized as possessing learning disabilities or LD and those who display low achievement in academics (LA). The main notion of this contention revolves on the level to which learning disabilities can be separated from low achievement and the degree to which circulation of these groups, social behavior and academic performance overlap. Conspicously absent form this topic has been the Identification of the difference between SRR and GRB. It would look like numerous children who are thought to be low achievers would satisfy the GRBs criteria whereas kids considered academically disabled would satisfy the criteria for diagnosing SRR. A similar quandary exists in separating children suffering from mild mental retardation from those having learning disabilities. Learning disability is normally described on the ground of a serious discrepancy between achievement and ability.   In this view, an academic disability symbolizes unanticipated underachievement In comparison to ones ability level and the occurrence of such inconsistency justifies the incidence of a learning disability. Mild mental retardation represents unanticipated underperformance relative to individuals ability and underperformance is considered to be as a result of low aptitude. Purpose of the Research The purpose of this research was to differentiate groups of kids who are described as LA, MMR and LD on a range of social-behavior, school history predictors and cognitive achievement. These differences are significant because of incongruity in the discipline regarding the degree to which these symptoms overlap or can be consistently differentiated on predictors important to social functioning. These behaviors were differentiated by means of multivariate analysis and meta-analytic processes utilized by Kavale et al. (1994) to re-evaluate Ysselddyke et al.s information differentiating LA and LD groups.   This research differs from previous studies in the sense that it incorporated a group with MMR and used more comprehensive assessment of social-behavior performance, which has been proven in previous studies to contrast groups with mild disability (Greshman, Macmillan and Bocian 1996). Main Results This study adds to the knowledge presented from previous studies. There exists considerable difference in this study and previous ones that could be explained by variations on variables such as ethnic composition of trials, operational description of groups as well as physical location of these researches. LA, MMR and LD groups in this study functioned lowly in terms of academic performance. The group having learning disabilities scored poorly in comprehension compared to the LA group. All the groups scored better in mathematics but were considerably lower compared to the LA and LD groups reported in previous researches. The results are reliable with interpretation from other researches showing that children with learning disability scored more inadequately in academic performance compared to children with low achievement.