Thursday, July 8th, 2004 Â© 1997 Richard Wanderman How could I
ask such a question? Many people feel that dyslexia is not a
learning disability but simply a learning “style” or
“difference” that isn’t dealt with well in school, and so, ought
not be associated with other conditions which are possibly more
disabling. If this is so, then what exactly is a learning
disability? Looked at another way, using “learning disability”
as an umbrella term might mean that anything that gets in the
way of learning could be called a learning disability. If I go
to school mildly depressed or distracted by a zit and have a
tough time paying attention, then for the moment, I have a
learning disability. Okay, we can beat the semantic issue to
death. But there’s more…. Maybe the problem that many people
have with “learning disability” is that there’s a difference
between using it in an absolute way and a relative way: some
“learning disabilities” have an absolute affect on cognition,
and others don’t. Possibly part of the reason