The LD Talk: Demystifying LD for the Student, Introducing Advocacy Skills

By: Mia Wernig Elfrink (1999)

The Churchill School, an independent school for high potential children with learning disabilities, has developed a comprehensive "demystification" curriculum to help students understand how they learn, to enable them to identify and understand their individual strengths and weaknesses, and to advocate for themselves. The goal of this curriculum is to demystify, or remove the mystery, of the child's specific learning disability. An important component of this curriculum is the "LD talk", which takes place during the second quarter of each school year during the student's Tutorial class. The LD Talk is a discussion, not a lecture, that encourages student involvement and thus ownership. Parents are invited to attend so they can hear how the learning disability is addressed and discussed with their child. Parents are asked to keep their questions and comments to a minimum during the actual talk so that the talk can focus on the child.

To prepare for the LD talk, the student's Tutorial teacher and Tutorial supervisor meet to review the diagnostic information available. This includes an in-depth analysis of the student's WISC-III IQ, Index, and subtest scores, as well as written diagnostic reports and school records. The child's daily academic performance in curriculum classes is also discussed. From these discussions, the focus of the LD talk is determined and developed.

The LD talk has different formats for different students, depending upon the student's age, maturity, and acceptance of their learning disability. Still, all LD talks follow a certain pattern. All LD talks begin with the emphasis that the child is smart, discussing as many strengths of the child as possible. These strengths include not only academics, but also social, athletic, and personal strengths, so the student can begin to understand his/her total person. With input from the student, the strengths are discussed and written so the child has a record of the discussion.

The next part of the LD talk focuses on a specific academic weakness the child is experiencing. Using concrete examples, the weakness is discussed, tieing in with a processing deficit. For example, we may discuss how the student's weak short term auditory memory is affecting their reading decoding skills.

The last part of the LD talk emphasizes the techniques, strategies, and methods that the student is learning to help overcome that weakness. Again, concrete examples are used along with input from the student in terms of what is helping him/her to learn.

For all students, regardless of age, the talk is meant to be optimistic, positive, and reassuring. For younger students, the emphasis of the talk (and the majority of the time) is spent on the child's strengths. Students who are attending Churchill for a second or third year may present part of the talk themselves, usually focusing on their strengths and strategies/techniques which help them to learn. Students may present information as to why a previously identified weakness in no longer a major concern. Our older students usually present the entire talk, as they would discuss their learning style with a friend, relative, or new teacher.

Each student then completes some type of follow-up activity, to demonstrate what they learned about themselves during the LD talk. The activity is geared to a particular strength of the child, such as artistic talent, whenever possible. Examples of follow-up activities include making a "smart poster" with pictures of their strengths, drawing pictures of themselves in different classes using specific techniques, setting goals in classes to more consistently use a certain technique, or writing a summary of the talk. The emphasis of the follow-up is the application of the student's self-knowledge.