Study On The Issue Of Students' Learning Disabilities

The research on low-achievement in academy in China can be divided into three periods, during which a basic research frame has been set up, made up of the concept, characteristics, types, causes, treatments and so on. Many causes have been listed. However, there have been few analyses about the relationship between different causes. And the usual way out of low-achievement is just like this: to find its causes and give the right prescriptions. So the students with low-achievement have been located in a position only to receive their treatment passively like patients. Since the 1990s, Learning Disabilities has been introduced to China mainly from the United States, and been gradually received as equal to low-achievement in academy. Actually Learning Disabilities and low-achievement in academy are not the same. They are different at least in the followings: they refer to different things and they belong to different logical levels. LD refers to certain abilities or ability in learning that are disabled, while low-achievement in academy refers to poor grades that the students have gained in subjects-learning. Logically speaking, the former may be one of the latter's causes while the latter may be one of the outcomes of the former.In fact, low-achievement in academy means subjects' scores that are under certain criteria and only tells something about somebody's achievement in academy at certain moment. It has nothing to do with his morals and it can be changed. It is individual and happens under certain situation in connection with specific teaching goals, so low-achievement is not ultimate but relative. Generally speaking, a student with low-achievement cannot meet general school demands, is weak in basic knowledge and skills, cannot keep up with his classmates in academy, and even cannot finish his homework by himself, of which his teachers and he himself usually have a clear idea. Among the listed causes, those from student himself and from school are dominant, and the latter dominates the former in many aspects. Teaching methods, LD, learning interest, self-efficiency and learning habits are most important causes that usually have the closest and most direct relation with low-achievement, considered as the first-layer causes for low-achievement. Social influences and intelligence should be considered as the third-layer causes because they stay the most outside of low-achievement. Those between the two layers are the second-layer causes for low-achievement, such as learning materials, motive for learning, student-teacher relation etc. In the writer's opinion, the process of improving academic achievement isn't that he or she only receives the treatment passively just like a patient, but that he or she should develop actively, i.e. whatever should be done will meet his or her own demands, with his or her feelings concerned. As human beings, they should be treated equally as others. Enough attention should be paid to what they are thinking about and how they are feeling when something will be done to them to improve their academic achievement. So co-operation should be emphasized and a good student-teacher relationship should be set up.