Our Labeled Children: What Every Parent and Teacher Needs to Know About Learning Disabilities Book

Every student has a learning disability, according to psychologists Robert Sternberg and Elena Grigorenko. The best reader may be a poor musician; a top math student may struggle to communicate with people. Yet an unfortunate one-fifth of today's schoolchildren are tagged as "LD." In this scholarly attack on the labeling of our children, the two Yale-based researchers take issue with everything from the unscientific methods used to designate children as learning disabled to the way students with distinctly different problems are grouped together and taught. They base much of their case on modern ideas about learning, such as Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, which argues against the traditional one-size-fits-all IQ.

The authors manage to avoid the jargon that plagues most discussions about learning disabilities. They briefly describe the history of the LD label, how battles over it have fared in the courts, and what studies have begun to link its origins to genetic makeup. Much of the dry and precise writing deals with reading problems, particularly dyslexia. The writers clearly map out a plan for how schools should teach reading to avoid future labeling of many children. Their perspective is a valid and important one for anybody concerned about children pigeonholed as LD, particularly parents faced with this reality, educators who deal with it on a day-to-day basis, or anyone studying to be a teacher. --Jodi Mailander Farrell