The Presence of Learning Disabilities in an Individual Lower the Self-Esteem - Research Paper Example

?RUNNING HEAD: LEARNING DISABILITIES AND LOW SELF-ESTEEM Can learning disabilities develop low self-esteem at an early age? of the of the Institution] Can learning disabilities develop low self-esteem at an early age? Introduction The human behavior depicts a variety of behaviors and is influenced by attitudes, culture, values, emotions, authority, ethics, hypnosis, rapport, coercion persuasion and/or genetics. Self-esteem is also one of the components of human behavior which is utilized for the understanding of an individual's psychology. Self-esteem is used to mirror the general appraisal or evaluation of the person's own worth. It entails such emotions and beliefs as despair, triumph, shame and pride. The determination of self-esteem in an individual's personality can be made through the evaluation of the skills and capabilities, and reflecting upon the realization of being valued and accepted by others (Hewitt, John, 2009). Each individual has a sense of dignity, and during the course of his experiments, it is the self-image that fluctuates and varies considerably. Recent researches show that the self-portrait of an individual changes throughout life and continues to change even after eighty years. Self-esteem is the positive value that is recognized globally as an individual as well as in each of the important areas of life. People are not born with self-made image. The children first learn to see in the eyes of people who are important to them: their parents, their siblings, their teachers, and finally their friends. In case of children who experience learning disabilities, it is arduous to develop a positive self-esteem. This is due to the fact they are given negative feedbacks from others because they tend to experience failures more than the normal children. The children undergoing learning disabilities (LD) frequently counter problems which extend beyond those experienced in writing, reading, memory, math, or organization. Ultimately, many of them suffer from strong feelings of anger, frustration, shame, or sadness, and this, in turn, results in them becoming victim to various psychological difficulties such as depression, anxiety, or low self-esteem. Besides this, such children also develop numerous behavioral problems including substance juvenile delinquency or abuse. According to Dr. Marshall Raskind, a practitioner and expert in the capacity of learning disabilities, these problems may pose more devastating consequences for the children than their academic challenges themselves (Linda Broatch, 2012). There have been several leading researchers and experts in the learning disabilities field who have studied the psychological tensions and hardships usually countered by the children suffering from LD. Conversely, these studied also offer recommendations and suggestions to the teachers as well as parents regarding the ways in which these children may be protected and prevented from developing these problems in them. The current research paper is based upon the aim to assess whether the presence of learning disabilities in an individual lower the self-esteem at an early age. The study will reflect upon the fundamentals of the topic under discussion and illustrate it with the help of elaborated literature. It will facilitate the reader with the impacts that are caused by learning disabilities in children on their psychology and ultimately, their self-esteem. The causes, consequences and challenges of LD will be studied and detail so that the reader is able to reach a concrete conclusion. Theoretical Discussion For children with learning difficulty (LD), life becomes tough and tougher with passing time. It can be hard for anyone to negotiate the phases of childhood and adolescence and grow up as a sensibly balanced adult after coping up with the difficulties of life. In such a situation, learning disabilities pose serious consequences to the sensibility and rational abilities of any child or adult. The learning disabilities, or learning disorders, are known as an umbrella term referring to a broad range of problems that take place with learning. Basically, learning disability pertains to a categorization that includes various functional areas in which an individual experiences learning difficulty in a general manner. The term usually denotes the major learning problems that a person may counter in an academic area. Moreover, these problems and hindrances are not usually sufficient to guarantee an official diagnosis (Renee, Louis, Daniel, 2002). The usual signs of learning disabilities indicated by the children include: facing difficulty in understanding, interpreting and following guidelines and instructions, having trouble memorizing and recalling the information just told by someone or read somewhere, failing in mastering spellings, reading, spelling, writing, and/or math skills, countering difficulties in making the distinction between left and right, finding it hard to identify words or lack the tendency to reverse words, letters, or numbers, lacking communication and coordination in sports, walking, or minor activities like tying a shoelace or holding a pencil, easily misplacing or loses schoolbooks, homework, or other things, Difficulty learning and understanding the concept of time and getting confused in distinguishing between "today, yesterday, tomorrow." The concept of self-esteem dominates the personality of every human being, whether child or adolescent. For children, the self-esteem possesses various dimensions and develops with respect to the evolving sense of identity in children. It also establishes through numerous life challenges and tasks that the children face. The building of self-esteem is a lifetime developmental process the roots of which are harmonized and strengthened in the early childhood years. The sense of identity in children is normally established, and balanced through their perception of power, acceptance, competence, control, and moral virtues. They participate actively in the development of their sense of self, which also integrates within it, the feedback received from friends, parents, teachers, siblings, and classmates (Renee, Louis, Daniel, 2002). Factors such as trust, love, initiative, autonomy, ability of social interaction, and the self-control contribute largely to the long term part role regarding the ways in which children perceive themselves as individuals. The sense of competence and self-understanding arises in their personalities through interacting with others, and from such situations, they usually build a sense of self and personal value. The children with high self-esteem tend to use adaptive strategies that promote growth. For example, a child who has difficulty solving a calculation will ask for help. In contrast, children with low self-esteem tend to use strategies that are unproductive and do not promote the success or growth. The most common are copying others, acting like clowns, disturbing others, avoidance of the task or game, exposing excuses to downplay the situation as it is boring or silly, and not listening to the teachers. These behaviors are an attempt to manage stress which causes these tasks and to maintain a sense of dignity. The consequences of learning disabilities in children have direct impact on their self-esteem, and value, thus, resulting in psychological problems. LD in children not merely poses problems in dealing with the academic requirement but has severe consequence. Parents and teachers, without bothering to find out the root of the problem, label their children by their behavior. This, in turn, can lead to the emerging of behavioral problems, difficulties and emotional problems. Many research studies suggest that, the children encountering learning difficulties become subject to low self-esteem which ultimately lead them to fall victim to emotional distress. They begin experiencing higher degree of anxiety, depression, and loneliness compared to the children who have no disabilities. Children having learning difficulties are often denigrated and criticized by parents and teachers, and they may also be turned down and rejected by friends and peers. The group may also include those people who possess quick perception and are singled out in the class due to their inability to spell, read or write. With the passage of time, they fall further and further behind, and eventually, form a picture of them as different, deficient, unsuccessful and hopeless, unless some special measures or interventions are adopted to address these issues. The constant rejection, refusal, failure and increasing low-esteem and suffering further diminish the level of motivation to make an effort and the children may produce in them a “learned helplessness” syndrome which supports vigorous escaping of school work and an attitude which is indifferent to learning. It has been studied and known for a long time that, behavior problems and learning problems tend to move together i.e., those children who possess particular learning difficulties are more prone to the emotional and behavioral problems than those children who have non-specific learning difficulties. Moreover, the children with emotional and behavioral problems are more open to higher risks of developing within them the specific learning difficulties (Ginsburg, Golda, Bronstein, 1993). These learning disabilities also contribute negatively to the social growth and development of a child. The children with LD fall victim to low self-esteem and do not have friends which make them feel sad, lonely, and misunderstood. They are more likely to involve in fights easily because of their feelings and perceptions of being disapproved. The emotional problems and psychological disturbances in children may hide their learning disabilities. This happens due to the fact that the adults will be more likely to focus on the behavior and personality of children and thus, ignore their learning disabilities. Therefore, when the disabilities will not be focused upon and children suffering from them will not receive any sort of support and help, they will turn up with justifications and excuses to escape from doing home and will be dropped out of school as a result of bad performance. These worries, emotional distress, and concerns may lead to an increase in the learning disability of children which is proportional increase in their lowering of self-esteem. Many researchers have observed and reported in their studies that children perform better at academics when they perceive and feel good about themselves. It is the responsibility of the teachers and parents to make the children feel good and assist them with their learning disabilities instead of being lazy and ignoring their problems. In order to help children with learning difficulties, their adults must teach them to replace these maladaptive strategies by more adaptive and efficient. This is important to provide opportunities to strengthen their self-esteem. The attribution theory suggests that children begin to look for reasons why they get the failure or success. It is indicated by the researches that children with high self-esteem attribute their success to their own efforts, resources and skills. These children take a positive credit to their success and feel a genuine sense of control over what is happening in their life. These are children who have experiences success in their early life and receive a response which is stimulating environment (Lagreca and Stone, 1990). In contrast, children who are subject to frustrations and disappointments are more likely to believe that their performance is supported by lack of "luck", and in this way, they keep undermining confidence in their abilities to own and control the future performance. For example, many children with learning disabilities tend to dismiss a good grade on a test saying comments like "I was lucky" or "The test was easy", or "the teacher gave me notice." These children minimize the role they had in obtaining success. Unfortunately the cumulative effect of failure influences the perception of success stories. Self-esteem is heavily involved in how children perceive their mistakes and failures. For example, those two children of the same class had a dictation of words and get a bad grade. The child with good self-esteem will say "I can take better note, the next time will study more or ask for help from the teacher to learn more about these words." The child with low self esteem will say, "This teacher never told us to take all these words and that words would drop so many points, it's not my fault". The first child believes that mistakes are a learning experience, rather than feeling threatened by them. These children typically attribute their errors to factors that can be mastered by them to change, such as lack of effort (when the test is within their means) or use of ineffective strategies. The second child reflects low self-esteem to blame someone else to hide his painful feeling of "I'm a failure, I cannot change, and I cannot get a good performance". Instead of believing that mistakes are a learning experience and improve in the future, children with learning problems often think that every failure is a noose (Newcomer, Barenbaum and Pearson, 1995). These children believe their errors result from conditions that are controllable or not controllable, such as lack of ability or low intelligence. In this manner, a vicious cycle begins in which children shall believe they cannot learn from their mistakes. They are without hope and wish to avoid any humiliating experience, so start them avoid tasks before, make excuses, blame others or adopt behaviors to manage stress as being the class clown, disturbing others or adopt a passive and dependent. On the other hand, their adults tend to think that these children lack perseverance, though their escape is simply an attempt to avoid a humiliating frustration considering their self. No child is immune to fears arising from a situation of failure or error, but children with learning disabilities are particularly vulnerable to these fears. They have experienced so much failure that his energy is set to avoid this frustration instead of implementing effective strategies to address it. Methodology The current study has been conducted with the help of mixed methodology research. It involves the utilization of both, primary and secondary methods of research. For the purpose of conducting primary research, I have interviewed my mother, Kate, and she provided me responses to how it feels being depressed, and sad. For secondary sources, some scholarly journals, websites, and electronic articles have been used to obtain data regarding the relationship between learning disabilities and low self-esteem in children. A good amount of data has been searched, studied and reproduced in order to obtain a proper knowledge and reading of the topic at hand. The data has been collected keeping in view the specific nature of the subject, its relevance, and the authenticity of publication. Thus, the study ensures reliability and authenticity of facts and information presented within. Results This study indicates that learning disabilities specifically refer to the lack of children's capabilities to read, write, distinguish between symbols, letters, and make distinction between other things as right or left. A direct relationship between the learning disabilities and low self-esteem exists. An increase in learning disabilities enhances and increases the declining of a child's self-esteem and makes him/her subject to various psychological, emotional and behavioral problems. There are many causes of children's failure at school but the specific reason is the learning disability. Children having LD may prove to be more intelligent in the normal lives but their parents and teachers may get concerned regarding their intelligence due to their learning disabilities in specific areas of academics. Adults, parents and teachers have high expectations towards children and are often disappointed when they are not up to their expectations. A person's self-esteem is very important because it can be the engine that drives to succeed in life on a personal level. Typically, a child with high self-esteem usually demonstrates the desire to try new things, to learn, to try new activities, to be responsible for their own actions, to have pro-social behavior, to have confidence in themselves and in their capabilities, to collaborate with others to recognize their mistakes and learn from them. On the other hand, the children with low self-esteem act in the opposite manner. The current study indicates that there are various problems that children can fall into due to low self-esteem. Depression, anxiety, aggressive behavior, feeling of being a failure, loneliness sadness, dejection and many other situations may become a part of the child's personality due to low self-esteem. Making excuses and perceiving oneself as a failure is common in children who lose their dignity and worth because of their learning disabilities. Various researchers and studies suggest that these problems become a common cause for the avoidance of studies, quitting schools and being dropped out of the academic institutions. Thus, we see that the learning disabilities, when ignored, can be prolonged and spoil the personality of a child at an early age. Conclusion and Recommendations The concept of learning difficulties/disability needs to be viewed as ‘symptom’ mirroring a wider aspect of the fundamental problem in children with respect to their behavioral and emotional problems on their academic life and learning functions in everyday life. A small segment of children may be able to overcome the difficulties; however, the problem seems to persist in the majority of the people and is most likely to have deleterious consequences on their academic adjustments and accomplishments. The children, who are countering learning difficulties, need special methods of teaching and at times, a separate educational facility rather than the institutes which are commonly provided for the normal children. In the real aspects, these children stay marginalized and undiagnosed and marginalized with their consequences and difficulties penetrating into their personal lives and conduct. Moreover, their emotional problems amount to the extent which hide their difficulties/disability and make it harder to be seen diagnosed and remediate in later life. The children with learning disabilities can be treated in order to improve their self esteem in the following ways: A positive and supportive attitude can boost their mental and emotional morale. Their achievements, progress, skills and efforts should be emphasized upon and appreciated. An environment at home should be created where the children are able to talk regarding their problems and grievances openly. It is the responsibility of parents to participate actively in the planning and development of their children's academic future. Parents and teachers should set reasonable and realistic goals and expectations from their children. Otherwise, the children with LD may feel overburdened or disappointed in case they fail to achieve the goals. References Dyson, L.L., 1996, The experiences of families of children with learning disabilities: Parental stress, family functioning and sibling self-concept, Journal of Learning Disabilities, 29 (3): 281-286 Ginsburg, Golda, S. and Bronstein, P., 1993, Family factors related to children’s intrinsic/extrinsic motivational orientation and academic performance, Child Development, 64: 1461-1474 Hewitt, John P., 2009, Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, Oxford University Press. pp. 217–224 Lagreca, A.M. and Stone, W.L., 1990, Status and achievement: confounding variables in the study of children’s social status, self-esteem and behavioral functioning, Journal of Learning Disabilities, 23: 483-490 Linda Broatch, M.A., 2012, Learning disabilities and psychological problems: An overview, Great Schools, Accessed online, retrieved on October 24, 2012 Newcomer, P.L., Barenbaum, E. and Pearson, N., 1995, Depression and anxiety in children and adolescents with learning disabilities, conduct disorders and no disabilities, Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 3 : 27-39 Renee Bradley; Louis C. Danielson; Daniel P. Hallahan, 2002, Identification of learning disabilities: research to practice, Routledge, Accessed online, retrieved on October 24, 2012 Read More