The Learning Mystique: A Critical Look at Learning Disabilities - Softcover

Coles, Gerald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0449903516 ISBN 13: 9780449903513

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 1989

Synopsis

An essential book for any parent whose child has been labeled “learning disabled,” for any teacher who has worked with these children, for anyone interested in the future of education and the future of our children
 
With alarming, even shocking frequency, children of normal intelligence who do not read, remember, or concentrate at the same level as their peers are branded “learning disabled,” the victims of some sort of neurological dysfunction. No one thought to examine the theory or the practice that has consigned nearly two million of these children to “special ed” classes, subjected some of them to special treatment with drugs, and stigmatized many with a sense of intellectual inferiority for life.
 
The Learning Mystique is the first direct challenge by a distinguished scholar to the concept of learning disabilities. Rigorously scrutinizing all of the available research on learning disabilities, Gerald Coles demonstrates beyond question that neurological explanations have never been scientifically substantiated, and that a considerable amount of professional practice in the schools is based on mere speculation. But The Learning Mystique is more than a condemnation of the attitude toward learning disabilities. Coles presents his own stimulating ideas on learning differences, arguing that school failure must be viewed and treated in the context of both the learning environment and the child’s individual abilities, behavior, family life, and social relationships.

About this title

About the Author

Gerald Coles is an educational psychologist and a former professor at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the University of Rochester. He is the author of The Learning Mystique: A Critical Look at “Learning Disabilities” and Reading Lessons: The Debate Over Literacy, and numerous articles on education.

From Publishers Weekly

During the past two decades, children who fail to master their early grade-level work have been diagnosed as "learning disabled" because of "minimal neurological dysfunctions." A vast subcultureresearch programs, professional papers, etc.supported by educators, psychologists and doctors has developed to provide treatment and remediation for the inexplicable conditions. Yet, as Coles points out in this important critique, there is little concrete, scientific evidence to prove the condition exists as described. By proposing an alternative theory, one that focuses on a variety of social and familial relationships experienced by children, as well as individual neurological differences that are not necessarily dysfunctions, Coles challenges the educational establishment. His findings must be considered by educators and others concerned about children who fail to thrive in the classroom. Coles is professor of clinical psychology at the Robert Wood Johnson (formerly Rutgers) Medical School in New Jersey.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0449903516
• ISBN 13: 9780449903513
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 353