A positive approach: Part I

Kids with learning disabilities are capable of learning. In fact, they have normal or even above normal intelligence, but they are wired to learn differently. Often these children are defined by their weaknesses, but they also have amazing strengths. To equip children with necessary skills and to give them academic success, we need to begin intentionally developing existing strengths.

As I have discussed in previous articles, experiencing negative emotion inhibits growth and learning, while positive emotion leads to exploration and mastery. There has been a growing popularity in positive psychology since Martin Seligman introduced it in 2005. The aim of positive psychology is to focus on building positive qualities while decreasing the focus away from the preoccupation of deficits. Positive psychology in education, while it does not diminish the fact children face deficits in learning, suggests that sole attention on deficits can lead to an incomplete view of a child.

In the area of learning disabilities, it is all too apparent that we have focused our attention on the remediation of deficits, while neglecting opportunities to identify, nurture and counsel children on their strengths. This can be seen in the children who feel like failures, who feel stupid, who feel like they cannot succeed. Seligman observed that raising children is much more than fixing what is wrong with them; rather, it is about identifying and nurturing their strongest qualities and helping them live out these strengths.

This approach can be utilized in the intervention of learning disabilities. Employing positive psychology concepts to intervention magnifies students' natural talents and strengths and, at the same time, bolsters resilience and promotes well-being. A strengths-based approach to intervention emphasizes students' effort and achievement as a general philosophy of teaching and learning by leveraging a student's strengths to remediate his or her weaknesses.

Skeptics of this approach may deny that children with learning disabilities also possess great strengths, yet we know that all people are made up of different strengths and weaknesses. Parents of a child with a learning disability know the amazing qualities of their child. Quite likely, it is difficult for parents to reconcile that their bright, amazing child is struggling in school. Many authors and experts in the field of learning offer compelling reports about the amazing strengths of students with learning disabilities.

In education, the focus has been on the remediation of deficits while often strengths are ignored. However, research demonstrates that interventions aimed at teaching through strengths produce better results than those aimed at the remediation of deficits. It is possible to leverage the global visual-spatial, imaginative strengths of individuals with dyslexia, or the creative, innovative strengths of individuals with ADHD, or the stellar memory and amazing ability to focus of individuals with Asperger's Syndrome to remediate deficits and become successful.

For more information on how strengths can be used to remediate deficits in strengths-based interventions or how you as a parent can leverage your child's strengths, please call Wired2Learn at 699-6232.