One of the Reagan observations was “If you tax something, you get less of it – if you subsidize something, you get more of it”. You may have been wondering why it is getting harder and harder to pull the wagon forward.
For a long period of time, the Federal Government has been rewarding school systems, state and local governments if they have a “high” rate of disabled people – so that process naturally causes schools and communities to actively recruit people they can label as “disabled” (think ADHD, Autism Spectral Disorder).
People (especially children) live up to what other people expect of them. Tell a person they are disabled and give them a check and free food – they WILL become disabled in reality. Give the unemployed a check for two years to stay unemployed, they become permanently unemployable.
*note: This table appears to be counting number of disabilities – so it may be double counting people with more than one disability. Note it isn’t even counting people living in institutions (Prisons, Mental hospitals, nursing homes, etc…)
I noticed this when I was working as a test evaluator for one of the largest educational publishing firms in the US. One state (Kentucky) required all of its 10th graders to write an essay based on one topic within a set of topics. Several students wrote about a favorite teacher, and a number of them contained the theme of one teacher who helped them learn, despite being diagnosed as “learning disabled.” School systems receive additional federal funding for “special needs” kids, so it behooves them to label kids that may not be academic stars as “learning disabled.” BTW, the essays many of these “disabled” kids wrote were better constructed and more logical than those presented by the “normal” kids. Needless to say, I was more than a little skeptical of the original diagnosis of “learning disabled.”
“Learning disabled” is a VERY broad term applying to a person who’s abilities don’t “fit” so well in an age grouped classroom, and may include specific issues such as: immaturity, autism, communication style differences, mental “retardation”. undiagnosed sociopathy, ADD, ADHD, or pretty much anyone who presents a disruption, or otherwise does not respond to the teacher’s wishes, or perform well on standardized tests after being “taught” by sitting still for 5 or 6 hours.
Some kids do very well in school until running afoul of a certain teacher, hitting puberty, or having family problems like divorce, or even unemployment or homelessness. In many cases when out of school, and free to find other work circumstances, many “learning disabilities” seem to largely go away.
If that sounds like a square peg not fitting very well in a round hole, you’ve got it.
BTW, dislexia is an instructionally created learning disability, see: “Why Johnny Can’t Read” by Rudolph Flesch (1955)