The Connection between Learning Disabilities and the Challenge of Foreign Language

Dr. Kamal SeSalem

Professor of Special Education

Dept. of Teacher Education

McNeese State University

Lake Charles, LA 70609

An obvious advantage of knowing more than one language is having expanded access to people and resources. Individuals who speak and read more than one language have the ability to communicate with more people, read more literature. Foreign language study is an increasingly essential part of education worldwide. Not only are school students constantly required to study a foreign language, but many schools have used a particular foreign language as a medium of instruction. For students in general education, foreign language study is indeed an enriching and rewarding experience. For the special education students the study of foreign language can be an unbelievably stressful and humiliating experience.

Like students with other types of disabilities, however, foreign language study would be a terrific challenge to learning disabled (LD) students.  Research shows (Granschow and Sparks 1995) there is a link between native and foreign language learning. Mostly it shows up in phonological difficulties (e.g. problems with tasks involving putting sounds together and pulling sounds apart in spoken and written language). Students with LD may do fine in other classes, but their difficulties emerge when in a language class. Often the phonological difficulties are present in their native language as well.  Teachers of LD students have also recognized that these students have great difficulty mastering their own native language because of LD Schwarz (1997).

WHAT CAUSE THIS CHALLENGE?

Ganschow and Sparks (1995) state that difficulties with foreign language acquisition stem from deficiencies in one or more of these linguistic codes in the student’s native language system. These deficiencies result in mild to extreme problems with specific oral and written aspects of language. Their view is that most learners experiencing difficulty with foreign language learning have problems with “phonological awareness”(one understands of and access to the sound structure of language). That is, they have trouble with the basic sound units of language, phonemes, and do not recognize or otherwise manipulate these basic units of sound efficiently. As a result, the student may have difficulty with the actual perception and production of language necessary for basic comprehension, speaking and spelling, or with language comprehension, which may affect understanding and/or production of language on a broader scale.

Based on IDEA Definition of Learning Disabilities (1997), “students with learning disabilities have disorders in one or more basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or do mathematical calculations.”

Thus, language deficit is a core characteristic of children with LD. Many professionals question the foreign language acquisition for students with LD because of the difficulties these students have in processing language. The problem was related to being Learning Disabled, not to lack of motivation or effort or to anxiety by itself.  Phonological core deficits entail difficulty making use of phonological information when processing written and oral language. The major components of phonological deficits involve phonemic awareness, sound-symbol relations, and storage and retrieval of phonological information in memory. Problems with phonemic awareness are most prevalent and can coexist with difficulties in storage and retrieval among children with LD who have phonological deficits.

SUGGESTED INTERVENTION:

Cusimano (2010), through her research and many years of concentrated work with learning disabled students attests that with the right kind of teaching techniques, and concentrated work for the development of basic skills as well as specific learning skills, these children can overcome their learning disability and “learn just like any other child. The learning disability had to be addressed in educational measures taken. Once the LD issues were addressed, the students could learn. Ganschow and Sparks (1995) investigated two approaches of instruction that learning disabled students could be helped to learn a foreign language.

The first is that many, if not most; students having trouble with foreign language acquisition have phonological deficits. To help these students, a variation on the method of teaching phonology in the target language: teach the fundamentals of phonology in the student’s native language before foreign language instruction begins. That is, students are taught to recognize phonemes, to decode, or read words, efficiently and to encode, or apply the sounds to the written language. Basically, they learn what language is and how its sounds and parts function.

The second approach to language instruction which has been effective is adapting instructional activities to meet the diverse needs of learners. This means making such changes as reducing the syllabus to the essential elements, slowing the pace of instruction quite considerably, reducing the vocabulary demand, providing constant review and incorporating as much visual/tactile/kinesthetic (i.e. multisensory) stimulation and support as possible.  Moreover, Frost Emery (1995) suggested the following Interventions techniques to enhance speech sounds:

• Teach metacognitive strategies. Teach children similarities and differences between speech sounds and visual patterns across words.

• Provide direct instruction in language analysis and the alphabetic code. Give explicit instruction in segmenting and blending speech sounds. Teach children to process progressively larger chunks of words.

• Use techniques that make phonemes more concrete. For example, phonemes and syllables can be represented with blocks where children can be taught how to add, omit, substitute, and rearrange phonemes in words.

• Make the usefulness of metacognitive skills explicit in reading. Have children practice them. Try modeling skills in various reading contexts. Review previous reading lessons and relate to current lessons.

• Discuss the specific purposes and goals of each reading lesson. Teach children how metacognitive skills should be applied.

• Provide regular practice with reading materials that are contextually meaningful. Include many words that children can decode. Using books that contain many words children cannot decode may lead to frustration and guessing, which is counterproductive.

• Teach for automaticity. As basic decoding skills are mastered, regularly expose children to decodable words so that these words become automatically accessible. As a core sight vocabulary is acquired, expose children to more irregular words to increase reading accuracy. Reading-while-listening and repeated reading are useful techniques for developing fluency.

• Teach for comprehension. Try introducing conceptually important vocabulary prior to initial reading and have children retell the story and answer questions regarding implicit and explicit content. Teach children the main components of most stories (i.e., character, setting, etc.) and how to identify and use these components to help them remember the story.

• Teach reading and spelling in conjunction. Teach children the relationship between spelling and reading and how to correctly spell the words they read.

• Provide positive explicit and corrective feedback. Reinforce attempts as well as successes. Direct instruction and teacher-child interactions should be emphasized.

In conclusion, the presence of foreign language deficits associated with LD has been well established in the literature. Does this mean that students with LD should not learn or be instructed by a foreign language? No, but it is important for the schools to be aware of the implications and possible planning needs involved. It will be helpful for schools to gather information on the type of supports they need, the implementation of phonological and/or syntactic training, and the strategies they need to use to teach a foreign language. In other ward, there is a need of educators and researchers to focus on developing effective methods for teaching foreign language to LD students.”

References

• Cusimano, A.  (2010). Learning Disabilities: There is a Cure I. (2nd Edition) Achieve Publications.   

• Frost, J. A., Emery, M. J. (1995). Academic interventions for dyslexic children with phonological core deficits: Handout for teachers. Communique, 23(6). National Association of School Psychologists, Silver Spring, MD. Adapted by permission.

• Ganschow, Leonore Richard Sparks. (1995). “Effects of Direct Instruction in Spanish Phonology on the Native Language Skills and Foreign Language Aptitude of At-risk foreign Language Learners.” Journal of Learning Disabilities 28, (1995): 107-120.

• Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997 (P.L. 105-17), 111 Stat. 37-157 (1997).

• Schwarz, L. Robin. (1997). Learning Disabilities and Foreign Language Learning. http://www.readingrockets.org/article/6065