Learning Strategies and Information Processing Development - Essay Example

Learning disabilities remain manifest more as students advance through elementary years and get ready to master readiness skills. Their memory difficulties could be attributed to weak information processing relating to retrieval and storage of information, and ineffective strategies for retrieval and storage of messages (Smith, 2003). How attention, memory, recognition and knowledge relate to learning strategies. Delays in learning strategies and information processing abilities, in addition to a deficient knowledge base on which new knowledge could be attached, affect the capacity of students in processing and recalling information.

The opportunity to learn would be lost whenever the attention of a student remains free or not maintained. This loss creates a deficiency of skills and knowledge, therefore, making learning less meaningful and forgettable. The learning-disabled students often become more impulsive and distractible compared to their peers. They also use less psychological control procedures to focus their learning (Smith, 2003). Preschoolers with learning disabilities remain more active as well as having difficulty in directing their attention.

However, their activity declines from age three into adolescence. In this regard, their learning strategies should incorporate attributes that would appeal to their attention such as shape, color, and uniqueness. An overemphasis on deficit remediation in the school curriculum does not expose the learning disabled to a wide variety of ideas, information, and language with the ability to stimulate cognitive development. Thinking skills need to be developed from the initial stage of a child’s career at school.

These include, but not limited to, skills for developing, interpreting, differentiating, testing, memorizing, organizing, managing time, and solving problems. Special education teachers also need to direct these students on how to solve problems and focus on essential concepts (Smith, 2003). In order to develop and maintain short and long-term memory, information should be made memorable through repetition or association. The entry behavior of students also influences their capacity to have a focused attention, memorize, and retrieve information.

Long-term memory results from intensive and varied information processing in the working memory during the initial stages. However, the learning-disabled students possess inefficient memory since they have difficulty stimulating information from the memory and associating it with new knowledge. Hence, more information could be learnt when a student possesses more knowledge Smith, 2003). An efficient, long-term memory of information should integrate verbal rehearsal and visualization as learning strategies for enhancing memory.

Moreover, naming and grouping of information may also be used especially for younger students to enable them verbalize and memorize concepts. These strategies would mature during the middle and high school years. Conversely, it would be worth noting that the identification of visual-perceptual delays in preschool children remains a difficult process since the basic perceptual skills of space and form develop at early stages of growth and development in life (Smith, 2003). How visual-perceptual, motor and language relate to information processing developmen