This article has been updated to reflect the new set of guidelines for diagnosis created by the Cross-Sectoral Psychology Working Group on Learning Disabilities, adopted by the Ontario Psychological Association in 2018, and the Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario in 2019.
In Ontario, a student who has been identified as Exceptional through an IPRC must have an Individual Education Plan (IEP) developed and maintained. An IEP may also be prepared for students who require accommodations, program modifications and/or alternative programs, but who have not been identified as exceptional by an IPRC.
The team has made the decision; an IEP will be developed to further support the student. The process begins and sometimes those collaborating in the development of the IEP can end up feeling quite overwhelmed. The timelines, the decisions that need to be made, familiarity with the software and the conscientious desire to develop a [...]
For a student with a learning disability, the goal of an IEP is to maximize the student’s ability to access the curriculum. Now, what do we know about students with a learning disability? We know they are smart; that they have average to above average intellectual abilities. We also know they will have needs in their ability to learn and that these needs will require accommodations to facilitate success.
This article addresses accommodations and how to adapt assessment to respond to the strengths and needs of students with learning disabilities.
Like in reading, a disorder in mathematics is not a heterogeneous condition. Some individuals with mathematical LDs may have good conceptual understanding of mathematics but poor calculation ability (e.g., they may answer 2 x 5 = 25 or not be able to borrow). Other students may be great with math calculations but have poor conceptual understanding. Another student may not understand the vocabulary used in a word problem.
Dyslexia, a specific learning disability, is more often investigated on the basis of its limitations than its strengths. The purpose of this article, which is primarily based on a survey of the scientific literature on the hidden potential of individuals with dyslexia, is to increase awareness amongst educators of the complexity of this disability and to offer a fair, even promising, representation of dyslexia. In so doing, it invites educators to reflect on their own perceptions of dyslexia.
Answered by Mike Di Donato, OCT and Brian Hayes, OCT Dyslexia is a general term for disabilities that include difficulty in learning to read words, letters, and other symbols; it is a common condition that affects the way the brain processes written and spoken language. In Ontario, we refer to dyslexia as a learning disability in the [...]
For a student with a learning disability (LD), a psychoeducational assessment report can provide invaluable information to help understand the learner and can recommendations of ways to help. However, deciphering a psychoeducational report and translating it into interventions to support the student, can be tricky. This webinar explains how psychoeducational assessments are administered, what information [...]
This video provides an introduction for classroom teachers on demystifying the psychoeducational assessment. It features interviews with psychologists and a psychoeducational consultant. Each participant discusses the many components of the psychoeducational assessment, offers an overview of the process of the psychoeducational assessment, explains what the report entails and discusses the importance of the report to the classroom teacher.
