1 in 4 kids in Ireland have learning difficulty RTE news

sasta le

Just saw this just now on the Six One news

That's seems to be a huge number thought it wold have improved in the last 20 years

grizzly

I've seen the big eared boys on farms.

FloatingVoter

Don't worry, half of them will wind up working for RTE News.

The Barefoot Pizza Thief

It's because Sharon Ni Bheolain's tits are so distracting I'd say.

This post has been replied to by a dyslexic.

Czarcasm

sasta le wrote: »

Just saw this just now on the Six One news

That's seems to be a huge number thought it wold have improved in the last 20 years

"Learning difficulties" though is a very broad catch-all term for people with... well, learning difficulties!

Solair

Sounds more like 1/4 of kids have a teacher / school environment difficulty.

1/4 of the population couldn't possibly have a learning difficulty. There's something seriously wrong if that's what the system is picking up.

dodderangler

FloatingVoter wrote: »

Don't worry, half of them will wind up working for RTE News.

Or the government

Chuck Stone

We should give them medicine. We should medicate them all. Blue pills. I heard that blue pills were very good for that.

orestes

sasta le wrote: »

That's seems to be a huge number thought it wold have improved in the last 20 years

Why would you think the number would have improved over the last twenty years? If anything, it's bound to go up as the standard of education and the ability to recognise disabilities improves. It's not like they have just the disabilites just showed up, they have probably always been around that number but just weren't known about or properly recognised because our education system was darconian to the point of being either abusive or dismissive of kids who couldn't grasp the fundamentals (corporal punishment, special/remedial classes, etc). The other side of it is that kids aren't getting taught in the same way as they used to so standards are slipping (bigger classes, too much technology, etc) and that the poor level in schools is being reflected in the kids.

The problem will come when these kind of things get over-diagnosed like ADD/ADHD and every kid who isn't perfectly meeting the standard is assumed to have a learning disability.

This stuff will all become irrelevant as soon as we figure out how to clone kids anyway, so no need to worry.

FloatingVoter

orestes wrote: »

This stuff will all become irrelevant as soon as we figure out how to clone kids anyway, so no need to worry.

But then the cloned kids will wind up in the horseburgers and it'll all be a nightmare.

hfallada

Well levels of allergies and disorders like ADD and ADHD have also sky rocketed. Anything that can be cures with a pill has risen.

The pharmaceutical companies are keeping the share holders happy

Gran Hermano

What are the criteria used to define a learning difficulty?
Does this mean that two out of four children are below average?

humbert

Does learning difficulty mean little Jimmy isn't doing as well as little Jimmy's parents think he should be?

shruikan2553

What exactly are they classing as a learning difficulty? If a child doesn't pick up on a subject as quickly as others it could just mean that the child needs a few minutes to have it explained, or the school can claim its ADD. Probably easier that way for them.

N64

shruikan2553 wrote: »

What exactly are they classing as a learning difficulty? If a child doesn't pick up on a subject as quickly as others it could just mean that the child needs a few minutes to have it explained, or the school can claim its ADD. Probably easier that way for them.

My guess is that its when a educational psychologist diagnoses a learning difficulty in the child?

wolfpawnat

Lets also take into account there are larger classes these days so if you can't keep up, your left behind! The teacher needs to get the curriculum done, if they have to help 30 odd kids with different things, it doesn't get done.

shruikan2553

N64 wrote: »

My guess is that its when a educational psychologist a learning difficulty in the child?

I'm going to guess the missing verb as diagnoses.
We cant tell whether or not they were diagnosed with the current info, are teachers sending a lot of children to psychologists these day?

mel.b

Solair wrote: »

Sounds more like 1/4 of kids have a teacher / school environment difficulty.

1/4 of the population couldn't possibly have a learning difficulty. There's something seriously wrong if that's what the system is picking up.

As someone else mentioned, learning difficulty covers a huge spectrum of actual difficulties / disabilities from Autism, Down Syndrome, other genetic and metabolic syndromes, hearing impairment, speech and language difficulties and things like dyslexia as well.

Its really not that surprising considering:

Autism prevalence rates are now 1 in 88 children.

Estimates of the prevalence of language difficulty in preschool children are between 2% and 19%

Specific Language Impairement (severe language impairement that children receive resource teaching hours) has a prevalence of approximately 7% in children entering school and is associated with later difficulties in learning to read.

In America The National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (LD) defines LD as a "general term to refer to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical skills" (33). Almost 3 million school children (43.8%) ages 3 to 21 have some form of learning disability and receive special education in school.

From ASHA - The American Association of Speech and Hearing website.

Schnitzel Muncher

You have to question where much of this is special needs assistants etc making work to justify their own existence.

Czarcasm

Schnitzel Muncher wrote: »

You have to question where much of this is special needs assistants etc making work to justify their own existence.

You could of course question it, question everything, because that's the only way you'd realise that what you're suggesting above is quite frankly ill informed and beyond silliness. SNA's etc do not "need" to "make" work for themselves by fabricating statistics. There is a DEMAND for SNA's and teaching assistants at the moment that far exceeds supply, and the reason that supply cannot keep up with demand is- cost.

There simply isn't the money there to provide the amount of SNA's needed for the amount of students with learning difficulties in mainstream schools today.

HazDanz

I feel it in my waters. This will be a teacher bashing thread.

Jimoslimos

50% of children are below average intelligence/learning ability.

ScumLord

orestes wrote: »

The other side of it is that kids aren't getting taught in the same way as they used to so standards are slipping (bigger classes, too much technology, etc)

I don't think technology is the problem, they need to learn about technology, it's the world they live in. It's just the teachers still think technology is learning how to type. They could be teaching kids programing and engineering from a very young age and it would actually make the rest of their classes relevant to them. Instead of telling them they'll need maths when they get older they would be using maths and wanting to learn more.

We're still treating the general population as illiterate peasants when it comes to education.

pragmatic1

I'd say it's fairly accurate. Having a learning difficulty doesn't mean someone is mentally handicapped. It's a very broad term.

I've heard the reason we have higher levels of learning difficulties in this country ,in contrast to other European countries, is because of successive brain drains due to emigration.

sasta le

Not a teacher bashing thread.Actaully I think parents should be playing major role too

Jimoslimos

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't think technology is the problem, they need to learn about technology, it's the world they live in. It's just the teachers still think technology is learning how to type. They could be teaching kids programing and engineering from a very young age and it would actually make the rest of their classes relevant to them. Instead of telling them they'll need maths when they get older they would be using maths and wanting to learn more.

We're still treating the general population as illiterate peasants when it comes to education.

Third level courses in science and engineering are bemoaning the fact that maths ability is severely lacking in undergraduates.

Maths will always be more important than programming or engineering. You can't have either of these without it.

HazDanz

sasta le wrote: »

Not a teacher bashing thread.Actaully I think parents should be playing major role too

Parents have a major role to a child's learning or not. Accepting your child may have some learning disability is often a stumbling block and without an open communication from the parents with the school it's very hard to facilitate the child's needs.

The primary carer ultimately has the final say for what goes or not for a child. Whether it's an ill informed stance from the carer or just a case of denial of anything being wrong with the child it often can hamper them getting the quality help they need.

Twin that with the lack of resources in terms of SNA support for teachers and you have stats like what the OP mentioned coming out.

HazDanz

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't think technology is the problem, they need to learn about technology, it's the world they live in. It's just the teachers still think technology is learning how to type. They could be teaching kids programing and engineering from a very young age and it would actually make the rest of their classes relevant to them. Instead of telling them they'll need maths when they get older they would be using maths and wanting to learn more.

We're still treating the general population as illiterate peasants when it comes to education.

Tbf I think the education system is trying to move more to a social constructivism stance which will incorporate more interdisciplinary learning so maybe in the near future technology will be highlighted in a more meaningful way for kids in classrooms.

HazDanz

Chuck Stone wrote: »

We should give them medicine. We should medicate them all. Blue pills. I heard that blue pills were very good for that.

In fairness the Indians swear by it.

doolox

This country has huge problems in terms of its inability to look to the future and try and solve personal development problems as early as possible to avoid criminalty and basic levels of long term unemployment brought about by some individuals inability to keep up with the mainstream education system imposed on them by a government that thinks only in 5 yr periods....to the next election.

Todays problem pupils are, by and large, tomorrows criminals, or tomorrows long term unemployed.

It is my opinion that pennies spent today on remedial education and special coaching will save millions spent over a persons lifetime in Prison and social welfare costs.

Several institutions exist in which a big effort in human development and training have paid off. The Royal Navy has always prided itself on only allowing fully qualified people to captain their ships, unlike the army where a commission could be bought. The US navy saved many stricken ships in WW2 by a strict adherence to damage control, team work and keeping cool heads.

Unfortunately we in Ireland have to learn the hard way that rushed sub-standard education and one-size-fits-all approaches will lead to increasingly bad life expectations for a lot of people.

Reindeer

That many kids live in Tallaght?

HazDanz

doolox wrote: »

This country has huge problems in terms of its inability to look to the future and try and solve personal development problems as early as possible to avoid criminalty and basic levels of long term unemployment brought about by some individuals inability to keep up with the mainstream education system imposed on them by a government that thinks only in 5 yr periods....to the next election.

Todays problem pupils are, by and large, tomorrows criminals, or tomorrows long term unemployed.

It is my opinion that pennies spent today on remedial education and special coaching will save millions spent over a persons lifetime in Prison and social welfare costs.

Several institutions exist in which a big effort in human development and training have paid off. The Royal Navy has always prided itself on only allowing fully qualified people to captain their ships, unlike the army where a commission could be bought. The US navy saved many stricken ships in WW2 by a strict adherence to damage control, team work and keeping cool heads.

Unfortunately we in Ireland have to learn the hard way that rushed sub-standard education and one-size-fits-all approaches will lead to increasingly bad life expectations for a lot of people.

It all boils down to cash flow and the public's conscious social concerns. If the concerns are not apparent and within the public domain nothing happens because a politician's main concern is tbf getting elected/reelected the majority of the time based on what the public really gives a sh*t about. Stats that come out which promote transparency in education can only be encouraged and applauded as more people will take note.

Czarcasm

HazDanz wrote: »

Tbf I think the education system is trying to move more to a social constructivism stance which will incorporate more interdisciplinary learning so maybe in the near future technology will be highlighted in a more meaningful way for kids in classrooms.

Haz I'd love to agree with you but unfortunately I wouldn't think such a scenario will be any time soon in the near future, far more likely in the distant future as parents realise they need to fund their child's education out of their own pockets (think tablets being provided in some schools now that are being funded by the parents, vs some schools still using desktop computers that are ten years out of date, at least!).

Then there is the problem of teachers who are unfortunately not as au fait with technology as others, and they have no interest in using twitter for history class (can't think of the school off the top of my head), but it basically all comes down to a lack of resources in schools, and you can't fulfill the need for those resources without financial assistance of some sort.

The government unfortunately would never consider such a radical idea as allowing private enterprise to fund schools, which IMO would provide the much needed funds to overhaul the educational system in Ireland.

Sergeant

Is this based on the same measurement methodologies that show the number of people in 'poverty' has increased every year since 1982?

af_thefragile

Flourine!!!!

The Queen of England

Things seemed to have improved since my day. When I was in school, at least half the kids were idiots.

woodoo

Czarcasm wrote: »

"Learning difficulties" though is a very broad catch-all term for people with... well, learning difficulties!

Does failure (or is that lack of desire) to learn the Irish language add to those stats?

HazDanz

Czarcasm wrote: »

Haz I'd love to agree with you but unfortunately I wouldn't think such a scenario will be any time soon in the near future, far more likely in the distant future as parents realise they need to fund their child's education out of their own pockets (think tablets being provided in some schools now that are being funded by the parents, vs some schools still using desktop computers that are ten years out of date, at least!).

Then there is the problem of teachers who are unfortunately not as au fait with technology as others, and they have no interest in using twitter for history class (can't think of the school off the top of my head), but it basically all comes down to a lack of resources in schools, and you can't fulfill the need for those resources without financial assistance of some sort.

The government unfortunately would never consider such a radical idea as allowing private enterprise to fund schools, which IMO would provide the much needed funds to overhaul the educational system in Ireland.

When I say hopefully the near future I think it's because education is being forced there whether they want to or not. The more society gets tech savvy the more education has to take note as they have to keep up with what is the norm.

Schools at the moment are tbh ill informed as to what good technology is. The more well off ones turn to ipads as they think "oh heres a gadget that can do so many different things to give access to children" when in reality a tablet a quarter of an ipads price could do the majority of the work a classroom teacher would need to give access to a child for learning needs.

I agree that education system in itself won't get up off it's ass to do something proactive but as lay people get more informed about technology (which they are at an alarming rate imo) they will have to take notice and do something about the situation.

Having said this though, you are right in the end money is the biggest factor! Depressing but the reality. The silver lining though I feel is that as time goes on the things needed for access for children such as tablets etc will get cheaper with the inevitable more sophisticated trendy tech items coming on the market.

Czarcasm

woodoo wrote: »

Does failure (or is that lack of desire) to learn the Irish language add to those stats?

I have no idea woodoo tbh. The soundbite statistic in itself doesn't interest me, because another way to look at it is that 3 in 4 students have no learning difficulties in school, which is actually something to be very positive about!

You'd really have to drill down into the statistics to observe whether or not the lack of desire to learn Irish is part of those statistics. I'd honestly doubt it though as Irish is only one subject, badly taught and all as it is IMO!

Actually now you mention it, my own experience of the teaching of the Irish language is a perfect example of how it CAN be taught. Irish is actually my first language as my mother was a primary school teacher, and we would've conversed mainly in Irish at home, but when I got into secondary school, I joined the Irish debating team, which made using the language much more natural and relevant for me.

But it was when I got into fifth year and I had a sub-teacher fresh out of teacher training college who was full of enthusiasm and passion for the Irish language that it made me excited almost (yeah, I was one of those sad bastard lickarses! :pac:) to be able to speak the language fluently.

Basically what I'm saying is that for any subject, it's the way it's taught that inspires a willingness to learn- if a teacher is passionate about their subject, they will encourage their students to go outside the curriculum. The teachers that only give a ****e about their payslip will just stick to the curriculum and hand out photocopied notes to be learned by rote, thereby actively discouraging the students from learning and to only memorise their subject through repetition, which 80% of it is forgotten 20mins after the bell goes for the end of class.

Sergeant

HazDanz wrote: »

When I say hopefully the near future I think it's because education is being forced there whether they want to or not. The more society gets tech savvy the more education has to take note as they have to keep up with what is the norm.

Schools at the moment are tbh ill informed as to what good technology is. The more well off ones turn to ipads as they think "oh heres a gadget that can do so many different things to give access to children" when in reality a tablet a quarter of an ipads price could do the majority of the work a classroom teacher would need to give access to a child for learning needs.

I agree that education system in itself won't get up off it's ass to do something proactive but as lay people get more informed about technology (which they are at an alarming rate imo) they will have to take notice and do something about the situation.

Having said this though, you are right in the end money is the biggest factor! Depressing but the reality. The silver lining though I feel is that as time goes on the things needed for access for children such as tablets etc will get cheaper with the inevitable more sophisticated trendy tech items coming on the market.

Call me old-fashioned, but I'd rather children left primary education with a good grounding in the basics of mathematics, language and logic. Their choice of tablet is utterly irrelevant.

JustAThought

Is that because they can't speak English ?

Or because they are in a Gaelscoil and can't speak Irish- and nor can their parents who then also can't help them.

HazDanz

Sergeant wrote: »

Call me old-fashioned, but I'd rather children left primary education with a good grounding in the basics of mathematics, language and logic. Their choice of tablet is utterly irrelevant.

It's not the choice of tablet though it's the way children process information. Some find it easier to just skill and drill info from repetition while others find visual aids (More so with children these days as they are being saturated in visual stimuli) that learning comes easier in that way. Tablet's are a brilliant resource for this to keep children engaged and not passive.

Czarcasm

Sergeant wrote: »

Call me old-fashioned, but I'd rather children left primary education with a good grounding in the basics of mathematics, language and logic. Their choice of tablet is utterly irrelevant.

I wouldn't insult you by calling you old fashioned Sergeant, but Haz makes a great point. My son for example is eight years of age and has an Android tablet that I picked up in Tesco for €139 (Now bear in mind that his booklist for this year alone cost €70).
On his tablet he has downloaded some of the great works of English literature in e-book format, a half a dozen math apps, and another handful of languages apps.

The only thing he WON'T learn with a tablet, is clear handwriting, and that is one of my biggest bugbears as we talk more and more about technology in the classroom. I'd hate to see the skill that is neat and legible handwriting be dismissed in favor of more futuristic input methods.

I'm all for encouraging technology in the classroom, but it must have it's place and it must be properly administered and standardised, so little johnny down the back isn't disrupting the class with the latest youtube sensation on loudspeaker!

With clear policies and a proper structure in place though, that same €139 tablet will save forking out at least €280 over four years as students could download course material and workbooks, submit their homework on a cloud based system, and have a proper indexed record of their work ready and prepared for continuous assessment.

Successive governments though as somebody else pointed out could never be prepared to be so forward thinking when they can't see past the end of their own noses!

Czarcasm

HazDanz wrote: »

It's not the choice of tablet though it's the way children process information. Some find it easier to just skill and drill info from repetition while others find visual aids (More so with children these days as they are being saturated in visual stimuli) that learning comes easier in that way. Tablet's are a brilliant resource for this to keep children engaged and not passive.

They're also an excellent resource tool for children with special needs such as autism and Autism Ireland run a campaign where you collect old phones and in exchange your child gets an ipad pre-loaded with specialised software to encourage your autistic child's development-


http://www.autismirelandphones.ie/ipad-packages/4559682637

N64

Jesus Christ, some of the replies in this thread are depressing. I should probably stop reading after hours.

Since when does being dumb equate to having a learning difficulty?

JustAThought

Czarcasm wrote: »

I wouldn't insult you by calling you old fashioned Sergeant, but Haz makes a great point. My son for example is eight years of age and has an Android tablet that I picked up in Tesco for €139 (Now bear in mind that his booklist for this year alone cost €70).
On his tablet he has downloaded some of the great works of English literature in e-book format, a half a dozen math apps, and another handful of languages apps.


With clear policies and a proper structure in place though, that same €139 tablet will save forking out at least €280 over four years as students could download course material and workbooks, submit their homework on a cloud based system, and have a proper indexed record of their work ready and prepared for continuous assessment.

Successive governments though as somebody else pointed out could never be prepared to be so forward thinking when they can't see past the end of their own noses!

Agreed - However Spare
A Though For the authors of tHe
Materials who wrote the Books For Profit. & I'm not talking about the publishers trick of Reissuing a New version ech year to screw parents out of money . If we want " books" , literature and educational resources In the future we have to stop ignoring copyright laws otherwise all we will be Left with is educational offal .

Czarcasm

JustAThought wrote: »

Agreed - However Spare
A Though For the authors of tHe
Materials who wrote the Books For Profit. & I'm not talking about the publishers trick of Reissuing a New version ech year to screw parents out of money . If we want " books" , literature and educational resources In the future we have to stop ignoring copyright laws otherwise all we will be Left with is educational offal .

E-books? The author could make the books available directly to students from an online store or licence them for a fee. I know where you're coming from in that it could add up to the €70 in licence fees, but I'd sooner pay that for e-books than the current system. It'd also be more environmentally friendly too when you think about it!

bnt

N64 wrote: »

Since when does being dumb equate to having a learning difficulty?

Well, if you're dumb you will have difficulty learning, so ...

No parent wants to hear that his or her child is dumb. In today's world, where manufacturing is becoming more automated and there are more jobs in the "knowledge economy", that would be telling them their kids will amount to nothing, just a waste of resources. By calling it a "learning difficulty", it preserves the useful delusion that "they" can do "something" to "solve" the problem.

In the UK, a 21-year-old umarried mother of two is up in arms after her doctor advised her to "stop at two". I suspect that this doctor has seen the film Idiocracy.

goose2005

Jimoslimos wrote: »

Third level courses in science and engineering are bemoaning the fact that maths ability is severely lacking in undergraduates.

Maths will always be more important than programming or engineering. You can't have either of these without it.

yet colleges will still admit people to science courses who got 300 Pts

Czarcasm

bnt wrote: »

Well, if you're dumb you will have difficulty learning, so ...

No parent wants to hear that his or her child is dumb. In today's world, where manufacturing is becoming more automated and there are more jobs in the "knowledge economy", that would be telling them their kids will amount to nothing, just a waste of resources. By calling it a "learning difficulty", it preserves the useful delusion that "they" can do "something" to "solve" the problem.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say bnt with all the inverted commas, but learning difficulties are just that, difficulties with learning. Oh I think I get you now- do you mean that by diagnosing a child with a learning difficulty that they are delusional to think they can help the child to learn?

That's what SNA's are for, to give the child the one-on-one attention they need to progress in a mainstream school and help them keep up with the rest of their class.

As other posters have pointed out, the educational system has come a long way with the amount of research being done into the different ways human beings process information and the barriers they experience to processing that information. Individual attention with a uniquely developed approach specific to the child's needs can help them overcome these barriers.

There's no such thing as a dumb or stupid person, human beings by our very nature don't all process information in exactly the same way, otherwise we'd all be clones and there would be no value in creativity, which would then invalidate a knowledge economy as we would all have the same knowledge and therefore not be able to come up with new ideas to further our knowledge and understanding of the world around us.

Albert Einstein was considered dumb in school btw just because he processed information differently to the rest of his classmates, and he didn't turn out too shabby!

Czarcasm

goose2005 wrote: »

yet colleges will still admit people to science courses who got 300 Pts

Those courses will still have certain entry requirements beyond points though, such as at least a B2 grade in Ordinary Level math.