Student’s Learning Disability of Elementary School in Tangerang: Identification Students Learning Disabilities, Factors and Teacher’s Effort

This study aims to investigate students’ learning disability, factors of learning disability and teacher efforts to deal with students who have learning difficulties in elementary school Tangerang Region, Indonesia. The research method was descriptive qualitative. Data collection techniques by in-depth interview. Interview guides in the form of a group of in-depth questions about learning disabilities. Results showed that there were 19 students who had learning disabilities. Students with learning disabilities in elementary schools found for slow learner, children with special need, and student with malnutrition. The factor that caused students learning disabilities were parents’ gadget influence, the lack of parental attention and lack of parental knowledge. Furthermore, the efforts made by the teacher so far have been giving more attention to students such as giving extra hours at school, positioning the child to sit in the front position, communicating intensely to the child's development to parents.


INTRODUCTION
Teachers and students have an inseparable role in the learning process. Learning can be run well if they have learning and teaching awareness each other. However, sometimes there are problems that come from students that the teacher doesn't know deeply. Learning dissability is a matter that always found of students it self and it requires special attention.
Learning disabilities (LD) vary from person to person and encompass a heterogeneous group of disorders. One person with LD may not have the same kind of learning problems as another person with LD. Someone with LD may have problems with understanding math. Another person may have trouble understanding what people are saying. Therefore, no single profile of an individual with LD can be accurate because of the inter-individual differences in the disorder (Friend, 2005). Learning difficulties are conditions in which both children and adults experience difficulties in tasks related to academics and cognitive (Swanson, Cooney & McNamara, 2004). Graham and Bellert (2004) added that generally students with learning difficulties have weaknesses in using their prior knowledge. Learning difficulties are also interpreted as a condition in learning that is characterized by certain obstacles to achieving learning outcomes (Mulyadi, 2010). Then according to Blassic and Jones (in Irham & Wiyani, 2013), learning difficulties experienced by students indicate the gap or distance between expected academic achievement and academic achievement achieved by students in reality. It can be concluded that learning difficulties is a condition of someone who has obstacles and difficulties in the academic field. Ahmadi and Supriyono (2013) stated that there are two factors causing learning difficulties, namely internal and external factors. Internal factors are physiological factors (students 'physical condition) and psychological factors (students' mental condition). External factors come from outside the students, namely family, school, and community factors.
Children with learning disabilities are not "dumb" or "lazy." In fact, they usually have average or above-average intelligence. Their brains just process information differently (Gargiulo, 2004). The general belief among researchers is that learning disabilities exist because of some type of dysfunction in the brain, not because of external factors such as limited experience or poor teaching (Friend, 2005;Hallahan & Kauffman, 2003).
Almost 35 years later, Lerner (2000) identified eight learning and behavioral characteristics of individuals with learning disabilities: a. Disorders of attention b. Poor motor abilities c. Psychological process deficits and information processing problems d. Oral language difficulties e. Reading difficulties f. Written language difficulties g. Quantitative disorders h. Social skills deficits According to Gargiulo (2004), not all students with learning disabilities will exhibit these characteristics, while many pupils who demonstrate these behaviors are quite successful in the classroom. As Smith (1979) observes, it is the quantity, intensity, and duration of the behaviors that lead to the problems in school and elsewhere.
Nowadays children who have learning difficulties are increasing. However, research on children with learning difficulties in Indonesia is still small and limited to certain regional populations. In 1994 from 3,215 students in grades one through grade six in primary schools in Jakarta, there were 16.52% estimated to be included in learning disabilities (Akhyak, Idrus & Abu Bakar, 2013). Then in 2002 in Berbah district, Yogyakarta, 36 to 12% were children who had learning disabilities, 16% were children who had learning difficulties, and 17% were mentally retarded (Pujaningsih et al., 2002). Other research states that teachers have also not been able to identify children who have difficulty in learning. This means that teachers do not have enough knowledge about children who have learning difficulties (Rudiyati, Pujinungsih, & Mumpuniarti, 2017).
Besides in Jakarta and Yogyakarta, Tangerang City is also a concern, especially about the presence of students who have learning difficulties. Some research conducted, was still limited to the identification of children who have learning difficulties in one of the subjects. Meanwhile, we need to know how children develop their learning comprehensively, what learning difficulties they are facing in learning so that it can be mapped how many children need special attention in the city of Tangerang and how the teacher's efforts in dealing with students who have learning difficulties. Therefore, it has the implication whether the teacher has the knowledge about the learning disability. This research investigated the types of learning difficulties experienced by elementary school students in Tangerang, the factors underlying students' learning difficulties and the efforts of teachers in dealing with students who have learning difficulties.

METHODS
The research method was a qualitative study using descriptive analysis which aimed to find out the student's learning disability. To carry out the learning difficulties, investigation activities must be taken several stages. These stages included: 1) Identifying students who are thought to have learning difficulties; 2) Localize learning difficulties; 3) Determine the factors causing learning difficulties; 4) Estimating alternative assistance; 5) Determine possible ways to overcome them; and 6) Follow-up (Warkitri, et al, 1998). For this reason, this research detected the types of learning difficulties, factors and teacher efforts to deal with students who have learning disability.
The research location which taken for this research were 10 elementary schools in the Tangerang area. The research subjects were 19 students who suspected of having learning difficulties from grade IV from 10 elementary schools and 10 teachers of grade IV teachers. To collect data that support the results of the study, researchers used in-depth interviews. Data analysis in this study used descriptive qualitative analysis techniques. Firstly, the researcher recorded the number of students who suspected of having difficulty in learning in class and the researcher asked a number of questions that could identify the type of learning difficulties experienced by students and the factors that caused learning difficulties. Related to the efforts made in dealing with students who have learning difficulties, the researcher also interviewed the teachers.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Based on the interviews conducted with 19 children from 10 elementary schools in the Tangerang area that the majority of students' experience delays in learning or what is referred to as the slow learner. The factors that cause slow learners are lack of attention from parents, addiction to gadgets and also problems in vision such as nearsighted eye. In this case the teacher paid special attention to the child, reported the child's development at school to parents, discussed the child development report to the principal and other teachers related to the child and monitored improvements especially with the learning process in the classroom both the right methods to do , media that interest children, and continue to evaluate learning.
Children with special needs were also become a concern in this study. From the results of interviews conducted both to teachers and students, there was a student with special needs, in this case is autism. But this condition still requires further research to detect certain disorders experienced bythe students. Because teachers have limited information about the term of children with special needs and only know in public terms that children who do not look like the other normal children are called autism. So far the efforts made by the teacher have been giving extra attention to the child, positioning the child to sit in front, giving extra hours and keeping in coordination with the student's parents.
Then, based on several schools studied there was a student who has suffering from malnutrition or called Stunting, the main cause was the lack of nutritional intake that occurs in children from birth, lack of parental knowledge of children's food intake, and being late to detect child development. Efforts by the teacher were giving special attention to children, providing additional hours of learning and staying in coordination with parents. So far the teacher and parents have fairly good communication related to child development, especially advising parents to carry out therapy to children.
Findings of the current study prove that students with learning disability had a gap of their academic. They have a poor attention of learning, reading difficulties and also in math. This findings in line with Lerner (2000), Graham &Bellert (2004, andFriend (2005). The factors that found of this study were generally caused from the internal and external side. The family condition had a strong influence of student so they have the difficulty of learning. Ahmadi and Supriyono (2013) said that this is caused from the external factors. The finding also supported Rudiyati, Pujinungsih, & Mumpuniarti (2017) it can be seen that teachers have also not been able yet to identify children who have difficulty of learning. This means that teachers do not have enough knowledge about children who have learning difficulties.

CONCLUSION
Based on the data examined, it can be concluded that most types of difficulties that elementary school students have in the Tangerang area are students who are slow learners. This is influenced by the low level of parental participation in children, so children turn themselves to gadgets and feel inattentive. In addition, malnutrition condition and eye health also affect children's delays in learning. Then students with special needs are also found. So far the teacher has done several treatments that can help their learning achievement such as giving additional hours of study, extra attention, supervising children's learning development.