LD survey(please only do this if you have or think you have a learning disability)

If you are a teacher then you probably know there are the annoying lazy students in your class, having their only goal being to anger you. What if that student isn’t lazy? What if they are acting out so they appear bad and not dumb? What if those minds you criticized and complained about could actually change the world if only they got some help. Time and time again I see kids who need help with their education get none, instead they get called stupid. For multiple different reasons about half of kids with learning disabilities don’t get the help they need. Kids who don’t get help can end up going into the world doing just fine but they can also go into the world unready, leading to bad times for them. I want kids with learning disabilities to not think they are stupid or lazy, but to know that they can be just as capable or more than any kid who’s brain thinks normally. My goal is to at least make people understand that this is not just some project that can be ignored, I want them to understand how serious this situation is, and how much the kids who don’t get help can suffer. Hopefully I will even be able to convince at least one school of this seriousness, and even if I don’t change anything, this could help someone else do something. 
 

Kids can often struggle going out into the real world because either they weren’t prepared enough or they have learning disabilities that they never got help with. About 1 in 5 kids have learning disabilities, but only a small amount actually receive school help. About 2 out of 5 people with learning disabilities were not diagnosed as a kid which can affect how the kid turns out as an adult. There are some good reasons that kids don’t get help, schools are lacking funding/money, not enough special education teachers, or teachers don’t have enough resources to make a regular class also accommodate kids with learning disabilities. There are also a lot of stupid reasons that kids don’t end up getting help, like sometimes the kid is smart enough to be able to hide it or they seem lazy, but that can end up leading to them struggling when they are in higher grades. There are also some people who can get embarrassed by the fact that they have trouble learning and refuse to get help. One of the worst reasons in my opinion is that some schools purposely make the student suffer and fall very behind until they agree to test them. “2.3 million students are diagnosed with specific learning disabilities (SLD) and receive services under IDEA. This represents 35% of all students receiving special education services.” (Learning Disabilities Association of America).
 

The result of kids with learning disabilities not getting help can leave them with mental damage that can be hard to reverse as the time goes on. Not getting help can affect a kid's future and how their brain thinks. Having little help or no help with a kid's disability makes them 3 times more likely to drop out of high school and makes them half as likely to enroll in colleges as the regular population. About half of people with learning disabilities have been involved with the justice system at one point. And only about 46% of people with learning disabilities actually get jobs, showing that they are 2 times less likely to get a job than regular people. Not getting help can also affect a kid's brain badly, giving their underdeveloped brain bad habits that's hard to get rid of. Kids can get bad anxiety of failing, so try to avoid being called on and doing work. Seeing their peers excel easily at a task can make the kid feel stupid, and having them feel like they are worthless, which ends up giving them low self esteem. The certain learning disabilities can make it hard for kids to understand social cues which can lead to them being bullied and having little to no friends. Due to how hard it can be to try and focus on a lesson the kid can’t understand it can leave them mentally exhausted which can lead to outbursts that make them seem like they are acting out. “These barriers to success are not only barriers in education. The NCLD report includes that only 46% of working-age adults with learning disabilities are employed compared with adults who do not have learning disabilities.” (Barto)
 

A main reason kids with learning disabilities can’t get the educational help they need is because of lack of funding. Schools never get fully funded for the special education program, having them rely on taxes, and even then they have a lot of financial stress put on them and can’t always fully pay to help out kids who need it. Even though money is a struggle, I think schools should still try their best to get the money by fundraisers, because a schools goal should be to teach the students and if they can’t teach even one student then they haven’t completed their job. If they attempt to get money and it doesn’t work then they should at least make the students feel as comfortable as possible. 

 As the years go on we do help more and more kids with learning disabilities but it is far from perfect. There are still only a few kids that actually get help or tested, leading to mental damage and a dimmed future.Students often don’t get help or tested because schools are extremely underfunded, so I think raising awareness then I could do a fun raiser that first just helps one school, but maybe it could expand and help more schools with special education. There are kids in a classroom who need a teacher with them who can understand how their brain works, but there aren’t, because the schools don’t have money and the kids will pay for it.