The Puzzle Children

ANNOUNCER:The following program is made possible by a grant from the 3M Company. Learning is connecting. If the teacher says to you, "Write the alphabet," and you hear, "Write the alphabet," and you understand thatto mean "Write the alphabet," and then your hand picks up a pencil and writes the alphabet, then everything is fine. The connection is complete. But if the teacher says to you, "Write the alphabet," and you understand that to mean"Write the alphabet," but you pick up your pencil, and you write something like this... ...something's wrong. Something is wrong with that connection. Now, for the next hour, we're going to talkabout intelligent children

with this type of problem, children we still don't know enough about. Something hard Something easy Every day goes by Something young Quickly changing

Reaching out For the sky Can we teach What we know? Can we show those we love The way to learn And grow? Something new Not so easy Yet it shines in our eyes The truth that love and understanding In our hearts Will help our hearts Grow wise

Something new Not so easy Yet it shines in our eyes The truth that love and understanding

In our hearts Will help our hearts Grow Wise. That song is called "Something." It's about children and learning, and that's what our show is about. Learning is what children are all about, and children area good part of what we're about, aren't they? I mean, where wouldwe be without children? Good heavens,where would I be without them? If there were no children to make movies and television shows forand write books for, I'm not exactly surewhat I'd have wound up doing. Well, I'm not about to spend toomuch time thinking about that. More importantly,who would ask us those questions only children can ask? Oh, they're all classics, like... what does it feel like if you're a cloud? Or why don't we havefour feet like the animals?

Why don't the Australiansfall off the world? I'm never quite sure ifI know the answer to that one. What about this one: Who made all the different waysof talking? And then the thousands of questions children ask themselvesday in and day out. Children learn by asking questions. We very often forgetthat their view of the world is quite simple. Learning right and left, up and down, and later reading and writing, are all new and difficult experiences. Learning is about ascomplex a process as there is, and the way your brain processes informationdifferently from mine is one of the main differences between us. That's important to remember. The experts often disagreewhen it comes to learning, but they're pretty much settled on that. All of us learn differently. We'll hear from the experts later. But before we get to them, we've got our own expert on hand, a magician. A real, dyed-in-the-wool,rabbit-in-the-hat magician. (applause) Thank you.

You're very gracious,and all I ask of you now is that you be equally observant. I ask that you keepyour eyes on this glass. You can ignore me if you'd like to, because the only responsibility is keeping your eye on the glass, right? Oh, yes, it's there. I asked you to watch it very closely. Did you? (applause)

Thank you. Thank you. You know, as long as you're not looking in the right place at the wrong time, we magicians are home free. Our job is to makethe impossible look easy, and we do it by knowing where you're going to look and when, and then... coordination. Watch. Are you watching? What do you think? Have I done anything with the glass yet, or am I about to do it? Ah, now it's over. And all you know for sure is that somewhere between the time that glass stood on the table and this point, right here, I did something. Now, to me, to any trained magician, what happened is quite obvious. But just at the timeI got rid of that glass, you had no idea where to look, and that is the showmanship part. Add timing and coordination, and you have magic.

Getting that coordination down so that it looks easy is the tough part. The tough part of anythingis the learning of it. But nothing is more difficult than the learning all of ushave to do as children. Do you remember that? For children, learningis a full-time occupation. Learning the basic skills that children are taughtin the early years is the toughest learning they'll ever do. And most of us don't even realize that. To us, learning is simplywhat children do in school. And once the basic operationshave been mastered, learning falls right into place. And that's true for most children. But not all children. And that's what our show is about. It's about healthy, intelligentchildren who aren't learning or who learn so poorlythat they can't keep up at all. The puzzle children. In this country, there are anywhere fromtwo to eight million of them, perhaps more. The experts call their problemsspecific learning disabilities. They're intelligent enough to learn,

they should learn, but they don't learn. They're a puzzle. And because most of us haveforgotten what it is to learn, it's difficult for us to know when a child is learning disabled. Most of us just don't knowenough about learning to be able to tell. That's the problem. To most of us, learningis a kind of, um... a sorcery. Inside the child aremechanisms that intertwine to produce the ability to read, to write, and to master language. But we see only the results. Most of the time, we're at least satisfied, if not entirely pleased,with our children's progress. So the magic of learning continues uninterrupted and unscrutinized. We are the audience. Our children are the practitioners. And, as with magic, if someone were to ask us, "How does this learning process work,"

well, we would simply throw up our hands. Because, as parents and even as teachers, most of us are just used to watching the process unfold, like magic. We rarely ask questions. As long as your childis doing normally in school, you can sit backand watch a magical process. But if he has a learning disability, the magic show is over. And to help him, you've got to peek behind the curtain and under the table. You must find out what's wrongfrom people who know. That's part of being a parent. This is Greg. He's seven years old. If you saw him casuallywith other children, you'd never pick him outas being different. Greg has above average intelligence, but he does haveserious learning problems. EUGENIA DONATELLI:He's a very bright boy.

His intelligence, according to the lastpsychological that we received, he's scoring around 120-- yet not being able to do basic skills. His abstract thinking is very good. He's able to express himself, even though the listener will have difficulty inunderstanding what he says. (speaking unintelligibly) MARY MARGARET SICILIANO:Did you have the alphabet? No. SICILIANO:He is highly distractible. He has an inability to sustain any task. Auditorily and visually, he has problems discriminating or associating sounds to a symbol. "U" says... -Says "uh."-"Uh." -"Ah."-"A" say "ah." Good. "Ih." "Ih" say "I." -"I" says...-Says "ah." -Ih, ih, ih.-"I" says "ih." If I say a "puh," he... confuses it, like, with a "buh." He's unable to say a "P" is a "puh." Therefore, whenever he puts it in a word

or when he sees it in a word, he has trouble sounding it out. -Say "'O' says 'ah.'"-"O" says "ah." Ben dan not... ge... get... in it. SICILIANO:Andrew. Andrew. Begin with an "ah," say it again. -Andrew.-Andrew. Good. -Agnes.-Agnes. -Am.-Am. -Axe.-Axe. -Ash.-Ash. Olive. Good. Imp. Good. DONATELLI: He does have goodjudgments in social situations. So, these all give us the, the knowledge that he does have the potential to learn. SICILIANO:And that's why you came to this school,

because you wanted to what? Write, read, be on TV. Learning disabilityisn't just poor learning. There are a lot of slow learners and a lot of fast learners. Children learn at different speeds. Only a small percentage ofchildren are learning disabled. Lynn certainly has a learning disability. Like Greg, like mostlearning disabled children, Lynn's disability isalso in the area of language. LORIE BUCHWACH:Working on these sounds with the I-R and the E-R and the U-R and the A-R, okay? After you figure out what the words are, I'm going to ask you to pick five words, and we're going to seeif you can make up a story using those words, okay? Lynn was referred by her classroom teacher and was then againtested by the psychologists who referred her to our program because of reading problemsfor the most part. Lynn also has trouble with phonics, phonetic analysis, decoding and encoding,whatever you want to call it.

She has trouble breaking words apart and then putting them back together. Broil... BUCHWACH:You know, O-I-L? -Oil? Broil.-Now put your-- -put your...-Broar... broll. -It's hard.-Put your B-R in front of it. -"Brr..."-"Bruh." -And then your "oil."-Oil. Br-- broll... (together):Broil. BUCHWACH:Can you use it in a sentence? Do you know what it means? I burnt? Oh, I see what you mean. Do I have to makea sentence with the word? BUCHWACH:Mm-hmm. Burn the skirt. Carve the turkey before it squilts. Before it what? Before it squilts. What's that word, though? -Coil...-Mm-hmm. P-P-Pour. -Choice.-BUCHWACH: Good. -Choicy mothers choice Jif.-Very good. (chuckles) BUCHWACH:Okay, go ahead. LYNN:Shirt. BUCHWACH:Okay, good. Let's go after this row now. The learning disabled child

shows a cluster of symptoms, including fine and grossmotor and coordination, language problems-- not so much speech articulation problems but syntactical kinds oflanguage problems, grammar. The way they string wordstogether to make sentences. They will show problemswith functions of attention in which they will be extremely impulsive in responding to the environment. Very short attention span. Very much difficultywith auditory, visual memory, short-term memory. Uh, they may be highly distractible, but they don't attend wellto what's going on. They don't look and listen selectively. And finally, the perceptualkinds of problems. They will have-- they will show a varietyof perceptual problems. Visual, auditory, tactile, where these kinds of problems mean that the eyes are all right. They can see fine,

but they don't interpretwhat they see well. They don't perceive what they see well. Their ears, their hearing is fine, and yet they don't discriminate. They can't... perceive or interpret what they hear well. So, it's these kinds of problems. These are the most difficult to diagnose. Come on...No, no, come on... No, no... Come on!Yeah. You know, it just so happens this trick took mean awfully long time to learn. It was a little discouraging. Other magicians kept telling mehow easy it was to do, but... I don't know. I... I just couldn't seemto get it for the longest time. And after, after a while, I thought, "Well, I might never get it." But there were other tricks that I knew, tricks that I could do in a flash. For example... Well, sometimes learning justtakes longer for some children.

They have to work harder at the areas that give them trouble. That's normal. There's no standard speed for learning. All children are differentand they perform differently, and it's something that parentshave got to expect. A child who brings home a "C" when you feel he should be getting an "A" is not by any meansnecessarily learning disabled. Marks and the comparisonsof one child to another are a practicewe've just got to live with. But normal learning coversan incredibly wide range. Don't go looking for a learning disability where a child's problem is his own normal difficultywith the subject. Remember, the chances are that your child is not learning disabled but that he finds some subjects a little harder to deal with than others. If I had decided that I couldn't do magic just because one trick was tough to learn, I'd never have succeeded. A learning disabilityis actually a disorder

in one of the processesnecessary for learning. And they show up as defectsin listening ability, thinking, talking, reading,writing, spelling, arithmetic, or just general body awarenessand coordination ability. By definition, learning disabled children are children with averageto high intelligence who show a big gap betweenthe way they should be learning and the way they actually are learning. Remember, a learning disabled child is not one who's getting Bs in school when you think he should be getting As. That's a different problem. Learning disabled childrenjust aren't learning, no matter how much they want to. They need help. Kendall is lucky enoughto be getting trained help for his reading disability. (Kendall reading indistinctly) "To find-- To find out where it was to be..." KATHY NOVOSEL:"It," "where it." -"...where it would be."-Good. I started working with Kendallat the beginning of this year.

He was here last year. We have a pretty heavy tutoring program going for him in phonics. He comes in in the morning at about 8:30. The school formally starts at 9:00. And I work with him everymorning for that half an hour on strict phonics skills. This, there, what. -(mutters)-T-H sound. Start again. This, where. -I mean, this...-You said "where." Where, okay. -This.-Start again. This, where... This. "Th." Make the same sound with your, with your tongue. (together):This. There's... -There.-There's... -What's...-Mm. We're going to be repeating that "th" soundthe whole way through. She... -Found.-Found, good. She found herself in a hay loft... NOVOSEL:You might notice in his speech, he doesn't pronounce the endingsof many of his words.

His speech patterns sortof betray the way he listens. He has a hard time maintaining his attentionon a task for very long. And in terms of discriminatingindividual sounds, he can't do that very well. This is what we're practicingwith the phonics skills program. Good, okay. And the last one is? -Think.-Fine. All right. These children are getting helpfor their learning problems. And they're learningbecause they're intelligent and they can learn. Why are some childrenlearning disabled and some not? We don't know that either. But learning disabilityis a bit easier to understand if you look at learning as connecting. BIXBY:From birth, we see and experience the world around us. An endless networkof connections begins to form, linking us with our surroundings. Our sense organs,principally the eyes and ears, begin to receive the messages of a world that demands to be seen and heard.

Here in the brain, the messages are received and interpreted. New sounds take on meaning. Images of light become people,objects, colors. The brain organizes and makes sense out of the endless stream of information gathered by the sense organs. Then it issues instructionsto the body to act. And here, early in life,a connection begins. The connection between the eye,which senses; the brain, which evaluates and interprets and commands action; and the hand, which executes the task. A most important connectionfor learning, for living. The eye follows the simplestmovement of the hand, paving the way for the greatestteam in the history of mankind. The hand, the eye, and the human brain.

Children with learning disabilities are very often misunderstood. They're regarded as lazy,unintelligent, stubborn. Some people argue, "A lot of ushave trouble in school. "Why should some children get special help just because they can't learn?" Well, a lot of childrendo have trouble in school, and most of them arenot learning disabled. The difference is thata learning disabled child isn't learning in the areain which he's deficient. It's kind of fun to illustrate. (plays piano key) La. Well, you're not impressed, huh? Well, of course not. I sing professionally,and it's no great shakes that I can sing a note from a piano. Now, remember that, and watch this. (off pitch): Michael, row the boat ashore Hallelujah

Michael, row the boat ashore Hallelujah. Martin. -Can you sing this note?-(plays piano key) (off pitch): La - La - La. Do it again. ANDREWS:No great mystery about these people. They're tone-deaf. They can't sing backa note in the correct pitch. They're all intelligent, their hearing is perfect. They're not stubborn or deliberately trying to be difficult. The fact is, as we all know, some people cannot sing a note. (attempting to harmonize) What about down here? ANDREWS: Some intelligent childrenwith perfect hearing have difficulty speakinglanguage the way they hear it. Some hear it and speak it properly but have trouble writing it. Some have difficultywith any kind of written symbol and can't do written arithmetic because they're confused bysymbols that stand for concepts. Many are generally clumsy. They have difficultygetting their bodies to do just what they want them to do.

Just as a tone-deaf personcan have trouble getting his voice to dowhat he wants it to. Well, if you're tone-deaf, the answer to your problem is simple. Don't sing. Or sing in the shower, inempty pastures, or underwater. But if you're a child who can't read because for some reasonyou can't learn how, you have a much bigger problem. Getting through life without reading is a tough proposition. Something new Not so easy Yet it shines in our eyes The truth that love and understanding In our hearts Will make our hearts Grow Wise.

Well, come right in.(laughs) -How are you?-I'm fine. Thank you and welcometo the Buzby Dance Studio. (bell dings) I'm Kenneth Dettweiler. I'm a very successful person. I own a string of muffler shops. Everything I do, I do perfectly. This is my wife Barbara. We take iron pills together daily. We have two children, Bradley and Buffy. We have an automatic garage door opener. We have two dogswho I've trained perfectly, and they get down when I tell them to. We're about to take a dance lesson, and I know I'll do this perfectly. (bell dings) Well, it's so nice to meet you. -(bell dings)-Thank you so much. Learning to dance has neverbeen a high priority for me, what with maintaining my marriage, raising my two extremely bright children, and most recently,redecorating my home by myself. Kenneth and I enjoylearning new things together. In fact, one might saylife comes easily for us. We belong to the local gourmet club, and we try at leastone new cheese a month.

(bell dings) Oh, Mr. Buzby, my husband and I only have an hour and a half while our ten-year-old Buffyhas her braces tightened. But we're both college graduates and thought we mighttake advantage of this time to learn an appropriate new Latin dance. As we're about to fly to Riofor the annual muffler festival. BUZBY:Oh. Well, you've come to the right place. Now, let me just show you a little bit about the Buzby technique. You see these feet -down here on the floor?-Mm-hmm. Well, our little saying here, we say, "Learn the beat and follow the feet." -That's all you've got to do.-Very good. Very good. -Delightful.-Simplest thing in the world. -This is the samba right here.-Yes. Now, right here we have the rumba. -Yes.-You see the way those feet go? Here we have-- well, that'sjust a quiet little waltz. Uh, but here! Here we have something thatreally has some zing to it. This is the mambo. -The mambo.-Mambo! -I've heard of that.-Of course you've heard about it. Simplest thing in the world, and I think a perfect thingfor you two to get started on. It's just a matter of gettingthat beat into your head. It goes "ram-ta-tam, ram-ta-tam." So simple, and it's just a box step. It's just ram-ta-tam, ram-ta-tam. -Isn't he good?-He is. -Oh, yes.-See?

Ram-ta-tam, ram-ta-tam. -It's just a box step.-Good dancing. -So simple.-Looks quite easy. Now, which one of you two wonderful people would like to try that? Barbara, go ahead. You be first, okay? -Okay.-I think I've got it. You're elected. You're elected. Um... yum-ta-tam... -Ram-ta-tam.-Ram-ta-tam. Dum-ta-tam, dum-ta-tam, dum-ta-tam... -Beautiful.-Dum-ta-tam. Perfect, wonderful. In its own way, it's almost easier than learning how to use a Crock-Pot. (laughter) BUZBY:Well, you just did a great job. Now, Mr. Dettweiler, it's your turn. -All right.-There we go. (bell dings) This should be a real snap. I'll probably do this justas I do everything: perfectly. (humming softly) This man has all the grace of Godzilla. Looks like I'll be dancing solo in Rio. -Now, Mr. Dettweiler...-Yes? Let me just show you once again -how simple this is.-Thank you. -Simple.-It's just your left foot forward. -Mm-hmm.-You shift to the right,

back one step, and then you're right backwhere you started. -That's it.-Oh! Left foot forward, shift to the right, back one step, and you're back where you started! -That's it! That's wonderful.-(laughs) Ah, yes. Yeah, but the feet have to do it. Oh, yes, yes, right. The feet have to go one step forward, one step to the right, one step back, and then back where I started,and the feet have to do it. That's it. Dum-ta-tam, dum-ta-tam. -Dum-ta-tam, dum-ta-tam!-That's it. (laughing) Hmm. Well, do it, Mr. Dettweiler. I am. Hmm. I can do it. I can do it, Mr. Buzby. Barbara, I know I can do this. I've been very busy this weekand I've been overworked, as you know, Barbara. I haven't had much time to myself, so please, just give me a minute.

I noticed there's a little park, a vest-pocket park across the street. May I be there alone for a minute and kind of get thiswhole thing into my head? Wait a minute, Mr. Dettweiler. I'm not going to let youdo this to yourself. It's just like riding a horse,and you fall off. You've got to getright back on that horse, or you'll be afraid of themthe rest of your life. Now, this is the simplestdance in the world, and you can do it. I understand what you're trying to say, and I appreciate your encouragement. Barbara, I have to admit to you-- and to you, Mr. Buzby... I can't do it! But, Kenneth, you have a master's! That doesn't apply here, Barbara. I can't make my feetmove in the right way. Mr. Dettweiler, this is ridiculous. That's impossible. -You can do it, anybody can do it.-I've always... I've always beena clod on the dance floor. I'm not going to take that.Now listen to me. I'm going to prove this to you.I'm going to-- People, sir, would you come in here? Madam, would you come in? Come on in. Come right into the studio. Come right on in here. Now get right in here, that's the way. Now, then, people,I have a gentleman here, Mr. Dettweiler, who insists that he cannot do the mambo,the simplest dance in the world. I know you all know it. Now let's prove to him how easy it is. And... music.

(mambo music playing) (indistinct chatter) (laughter) MAN:Whoo! Woo-hoo! Mambo, baby. How you doing? BUZBY:There we go. Mambo! Oh, it's been years since I've done that. As I'm sure you can all tell. Unless you're naturally good at dancing, it's hard to learn. Look at all the coordination involved. You've got your feet, your hands, your body, the music, your partner.

And then you've got towatch where you're going and know what you're doing next. And on top of all that,you've got to look graceful. Well, for some people,it's awfully difficult. It doesn't mean thatthey're not intelligent. It means they don't dance well. It's harder for them to learn. There are some very smart children who have just as tough a time learning. BIXBY: Kenneth Dettweilercouldn't dance the mambo. Too bad. But Mark here hasserious coordination trouble, and it affected his learning. His writing was poor, and he had difficultyin getting his thoughts down in proper sequence on paper. But his teachers could see that he was a potentiallyexcellent student. He's an avid reader as it is. So he was referred for proper help from specially trained teachers, and he has gradually improved. And now he can make the mostof his high intelligence and his desire to do well in school. One of the classic illustrationsof learning disability is this kind of writing.

Children with this problemcan reverse letters, write all over the page, be completely unable to form letters or to even write in a straight line. Now, these are some ofthe most puzzling symptoms of learning disability, because, again,these are intelligent children. They should be able to write. Now, how do we know these children aren'tintellectually impaired? Well, we'll show you. We can make normalintelligent healthy adults write the same way. Watch. -I can't do mine.-Move your hand. -(laughter)-I can't move my hand, it won't move. BIXBY: We're reflectinga simple five-pointed star into a mirror, and we've asked these people just to trace along the inside of a star, looking only at the reflected image. Of course, the star looks the same, but the normal relationshipbetween the eye and the hand has been reversed. The eye is sending the brain one message, but the orders the brain issending to the hand are wrong.

So these people areperceiving incorrectly, so they're writing incorrectly. The connection between eye,hand, and brain is fine, but the message isstill being misinterpreted. MAN:This pencil won't draw a straight line. By the way, get a paper and pencil ready. You'll see why in a minute. -INTERVIEWER: One more time.-Okay. Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder wh-what you are... (laughs) BIXBY: Speaking and hearingare so closely related that if your own speechis echoed back into your ears, you'll have a lot of trouble talking. Armed with a pair of earphonesand a tape recorder, we can give any intelligent person, child or adult, an auditory problemthat'll send them reeling. This is really amazing. Mary had a little la-amb,her fleece was white as snow. BIXBY:And as soon as you tamper

with the auditory processing function, you begin to see the tough time learning disabled children can have. Star-spangled bank...(laughs) O say, can you see... (chuckling):by the dawn's early li-ight. Mary had little-- a little lamb, her fleece was white as snow. And everywhere-where that Mar-- Mary went, her-- the lamb was sure to go. (laughs) BIXBY:By the way, here is what these peoplehave been hearing. -(laughs)-(laugh echoes) -Okay, twinkle, twinkle...-Okay, twinkle, twinkle... -...little star.-...little star. -How I wonder wh-what you are...-How I wonder wh-what you are... -(laughs)-(laughs) -Up above the world, the world so high.-(echoes) -Like a diamond in-in the sky.-Like a diamond in-in the sky. We're using gadgets because, since most peopledon't have these problems, we have to create them. We're trying to show you how real and frustratinglearning disabilities can be. We're not duplicating them,

because they can't be duplicated. But we can show you one trick that doesn't require any gadgets except a pencil and a piece of paper. Do you see this line? Now, remember that pieceof paper I told you to get? Okay. Put it up against the TV screen. Oh, come on, go ahead. Come on, get up for a second. You've been sitting aroundfor the whole show. I want to show you something. All right. Now you have it on the screen. Now just trace the lineonto your piece of paper. Oh, it can be a little crooked.We're not going to grade you. Okay? Now keep the paper up there while we add just a few morelines and curves. There we go. Now trace that. A little harder? Oh, go ahead, keep going. Some way to spend an evening, huh? (chuckles) Now, now take the paper away. How'd you do?

Oh, you say you traced it pretty well? Fine.Good, good. Now draw it. Go on. I mean, if you just traced it, you sure should be able to draw it. We'll leave it up therejust a little bit longer while I go through a liturgythat's all too familiar to kids with learning problems. "What do you mean you can't draw it? "Look at Sally, she did it perfectly. "Leslie, I'm giving you "just 30 seconds to finish your drawing, and then you're goingto have to hand it in." "Arthur, why are you just sitting there? "Everyone else is working. Do you want another notesent home to your parents?" The trouble you're having with this object is similar to childrenwith perceptual difficulty which prevent themfrom reading and writing, except that children with theseand other learning disabilities live in a world ofunfair criticism and mockery,

and sometimes fortheir entire school lives. That's really not fair, is it? Of course, when you're an adult, criticism from a teacher or a friend is a lot easier to take thanit is when you're a child. And since learning disabled children are often misunderstood anyway by both teachers and other children, criticism and teasing becomespart of their early life. For a child, criticism is serious. And since learning disabledchildren are intelligent enough to know that there'ssomething wrong with them, severe personality problems can develop as a result of their disability. They treated us--us like morons, you know? We're the wrong groupof people to be with, we're the stupid ones, the retards. Yeah, ha ha, he can't laugh, and they'd tease you, they'd... call you names and everything. Called you weird and stuff like that because you just couldn't-- just 'cause you couldn't read. I could do tests okay, but I just always had trouble trying to read the questions, you know?

And read certain words. But I could do itjust as well as anybody else if I couldn't-- if I could,you know, just read better. When you're 14 or 15 years old and you have a learning disability, you really havea difficult time in school. You not only have the problemsof being an adolescent, which is a difficult periodof time for any student, but you also have the added problems of failing in school andnot being part of any group. Most learning disabled kidsare, um, social outcasts. All you have to do is tell kids that you're in learningdisability class, and, you know, that's the end of friendships. It's so stupid. You know, it seems like they should be in a class of their own: learn how to understand people. ZIGMOND:Most of them have lived with the frustration of not being able to learn up to people's expectationsfor a long time. And in addition, they've lived with the problems that learningdisability brings with it. My parents thought I was goofing off,

you know, in the elementary grades. But, just... after a couple years, you know, they found out that, you know, I was startingto have problems in math and everything. And I wasn't catching onto spelling, and, you know. They just sort of understoodand tried to get some help. Somebody that, you know,could see what was going down. ZIGMOND:When the learning disabled adolescent reaches the junior highor high school level, his needs are many. He needs not only helpwith the social things that we've been talking about, but he also needs instruction in very basic academic skills. So that by the time he leaves high school, he will have the tools for living. The time is very short by the time a student is an adolescent. But it's not too late. (chuckling):I was making Ds and Fs before I got in here.Now I'm making As and Bs. Sometimes Cs. And, you know, that's whyI got into this class in the first place,because of my Ds and Fs.

Mostly Fs.(chuckles) All I can say is stick with it, it helps. Learning disabilities have never been easy to understand,not even for the experts, who have yet to settle on a definition to satisfy all of them. But we know enoughabout learning disabilities to help the children who have them. The boy who can't read,the girl who can barely speak, and countless other childrenmay have some form of specific learning disability. BIXBY:Greg's disability was in the area ofauditory discrimination. He hears perfectly, but he doesn't interpretwhat he hears properly. And there's that connection again. We know that he does understandeverything he's told. He's also masteredthe language beautifully, but somewhere somethingis being misinterpreted. Greg is still unable to detect all of the subtle sounds of language, which is why he has troublespeaking, reading, and writing. Encoding and decoding--that's Lynn's problem.

Connecting combinations of letters with the sounds they stand for. Lynn can't match them upwith their spoken equivalents. She sees the letters perfectly. Unlike Greg, she can hearthe sounds accurately. But somewhere in that connection, either in recognizingthe letter combinations or in connecting them withsounds, Lynn gets confused. Similarly, Kendall's troublewith blending-- making extended and intricate sounds from combinations of letters--is impeding his learning. Why?Again, some connection. We know he sees and hears normally, yet he has trouble with his reading. Mark has poor controlover his motor functions. That means he doesn'thave the subtle control necessary for smooth operation. He writes, he can get from place to place, but he doesn't do these taskswith normal ease. Another connection possibly between the brainand a muscle group?

Some learning disabled children are lucky. Their parents know enoughto know that they don't know. They get help. ...sort of testing, and no one was really directing us and... not totally identifying Greg's problem. Uh, they would say perhapsit was emotional and perhaps it was speech. But we felt it was the speech area, but we weren't quite certainbetween the two of us. Was it something that hadto do with an emotional problem that prompted the speechsort of situation? We took Mark to an orthopedist. They could not find a problem. We took him to a neurologist. At that time, the neurologist could not find the-- the problem. It was not a pediatric neurologist. And they suggested maybegoing to a child psychiatrist, which is what we did whenMark was about two and a half, and the first thing she did was say, "Throw away the stroller." It was just fortunate for us that we had started that early. Because many parents that start later, the child is fourth or fifth grade,

and he's developedemotional problems on top. It was really becomingan emotional thing between us. It was fighting at home between the parent and the child. And we just didn't know what to do. It started back... in first grade when we moved to this area. And her teacher had noticedshe had a problem with reading. And then she made it up to second grade. And that teacher... had so many students that she thoughtLynny was just, like, lazy. And meanwhile,her first grade teacher moved. So she wasn't ableto explain what she felt. I think the important thingis to recognize the problem and have professionals look into it, because so many times, with the current training and teaching, I mean, it's so new and it is a new field that many of us aren't aware ofand the complexity of it, that you do have to seek, you know, help. We were just so thankful that we were able

to get the right directionand have the interest of the school that he was attending. The one thing commonto all of these parents is that they tried and didn't stop trying until they found an answer. By sitting at homeand trying to find blame, trying to piece together bits of opinion from everyone who has an idea,one thing gets accomplished: a delay in diagnosisand damage to the child. Well, are you going to answer me? I mean, have you beenlistening to me at all? What? I'm talking to you about Jerry. I know you're talking to me about Jerry. I mean, did you hear what I said? The reason he reads an English sentence like it's Morse code is becausethis house is all messy. Oh, you think this house is all messy? -Yeah...-You show me how this house is all messy. Okay, okay, okay. Look at this.What's this, huh? Lint. -Lint?-Lint. You think that the lint causes his reading problems? I read that it does havesomething to do with it. If you are so dumb, if you are so dumb that you think that lint causes his reading problems,

then, well, it should be no surprise that Jerry is having trouble in school. -Okay, fine.-I bet you think that lint relates to his coordinationproblems, too, do you? I told you abouthis coordination problems. Yeah? Arnie told me thathis coordination problems are nothing that won'tbe outgrown in six months. Yeah, well, Emily told me that any child who spends no time,zero time with his father is bound and guaranteed to haveproblems with coordination. -Is that what Emily said?-That's what Emily said. Brilliant. -Yes.-Wonderful. As long as Emily said it, it must be true. Emily was a teacher for many years before she got married. -Yeah.-And if I talk to Emily about the problems that Jerry is having, I don't see whyyou should take such offense. Well, you ought to talk to him, 'cause that's the real problem.He can't read. You know, he's ten years oldand he can't read the... "I see the ball." It's not that he can't read.It's sometimes he can't read. Well, he reads fromright to left is what he does. You know, let's get himsome Jewish newspapers. Honey, I don't... I don't want to fight with you. I really don't. Okay.

I mean, that isnot going to help Jerry at all. Yeah, you're right. When I was in the kitchen,I had this idea. Just tell me what you think. I thought that maybe this summer, we could rent a house in the country and you could play ball with him, and... and maybe that would helphis coordination a bit. And maybe just being together as a family, spending some quiet time, maybe his reading problemswould disappear, too. You think time in the country would help his reading problem? Well, I mean, it's justa thought that the... He has a reading problem 'cause this house is always all messed up. -Oh, yeah?-Yeah. Well, why don't you get Arnie to come over hereand help you clean it up? Arnie knows what he's talking about. He's a coach. He knows coordination. Yeah, well, Emily knows, too.She's a teacher. Hey, listen. How aboutwe forget Arnie and Emily -for a second, okay?-Yeah. Go to the real source of allinformation and wonderfulness. -Oh, yeah, who's that?-Your mother. If you sit around and wait, eventually you may hear enough opinions to make you think yourchild's situation is hopeless. It is not.

In 1964, a group of parents, frustrated by lack of official recognition of children's learning disabilities, formed an organization. That organization has grown stronger and stronger ever since and exerted great influenceboth in Washington and in school systemsthroughout the country. As a parent who suspects that your child may be learning disabled, you should contact immediately the Association for Childrenwith Learning Disabilities, the ACLD. There isn't a learning disability with which this parents'organization is not familiar. But there is a chapter of the ACLD in almost every state of the union. Write to them. They'll have literatureon learning disabilities, and more important,they'll put you in contact with people who can help and other parents oflearning disabled children. There is also an organizationin Washington, D.C. called... (drumroll) ...Closer Look, which is a clearinghouse for information, and they will send youan information packet

on learning disability at your request. The information is free. Well, up to now, we've talkedonly about children, but learning disabled childrenwho aren't treated go on to become learning disabled adults. I'm 33 years old,and up until seven months ago, I read at a third grade level. I'm now attending South Campusat West Mifflin for a reading disability. People say, "Well, howcan you live and not read?" You learn to con. We have to learn to improvisefor ourselves, and we do it. Don't kid yourself, you can do it. I do it. I function every day, and I do it. At work, I do it. And... at work they wanted me to be a group leader, and I-I was petrified. You know, there's forms to fill out and this to do and that to do. And you'd be surprised.You know, you go over and say, "Hey, I really don't understand this. How about giving me a hand with it?" And they fill it out for you,

and then you just keep it as a reference. You know, I have lots of references. Believe me, there's a lot of people out there today conning their way through society and through life, and they can't read or they can't subtract or add or multiply. I wouldn't be heresaying the things I'm saying if I didn't want peopleto help other people to get out of this conningand this improvising and get into the mainstream of life. We know so much aboutlearning disabilities today. We know so much abouthandicapped children today, all varieties of handicap. And yet we really know so little. Um... in most of the states, in most of our public school systems-- we have approximately 15,000school systems in the country-- learning disabled childrenare not being diagnosed. They're not being diagnosed early enough. They're not being diagnosed properly. They're not being diagnosedat all, in many cases. Uh, consequently, of course, they're not--

no remedy has started. Well, I see a new second generation of sophistication among the ACLD parents who will work withthe school administration, in harmony with them, and--(coughs) excuse me-- help them sell their local school board the need for more fundsfor more specialized programs. And I think they will suddenly discover that instead of having enemiesin the school system, they'll have allies and friends. But unfortunately,in so many school districts, the first confrontation has been a denial by the school system that the child needsa specialized program. And the antagonism build up very quickly, because unless one has been a parent, it's very difficult to realize the torture that they have gone through, the isolation. No one else will shoulderthe burden for their child. And they've had to struggleand fight and oppose,

so they have a posture of opposition. In our program tonight, we've shown youlearning disabled children. You've watched them workwith special educators. You've learned symptomsof learning disability. You've heard the expertsand you've seen the parents. Now, if you suspect your childmay be learning disabled, make contact with the ACLD or Closer Look. Please remember the difference between slow learningand learning disability. Decide whom you're serving,yourself or your child. If your child is getting a "B" or a "C" when you feel he should be getting an "A," well, the chances are that it's your pride and not his learning abilitythat's damaged. But if you really suspect,based on this program, that your child's terribly slowprogress in one or more areas might be due to a learningdisability, you must find out. I don't know who coined that phrase "a bag full of tricks,"

but it certainly isn't true for me. I mean, in order to moveall the stuff that I have, I have to use a couple of trunks. But I figure, if you're going to do magic, you have to have the equipment. Now, for learning,you don't really need a thing. Oh, a book to read, a pencil. But the real equipment is standard. We're born with it. We learn to use it almost from birth, and magic can't hold a candle to it. Learning is a miracle. But it's one that you'vegot to keep your eye on. It's not just a little sleight of hand put together for your enjoyment. It's something you have to find out about if you suspect that your childmay have a learning problem. Oh, now, I'll grant, we don't know everythingthere is to know about learning. But certainly, enough is known so that you, if you seriously suspect your child's actual learning ability, can get the help you need

from those with experiencein learning disabilities. Now, remember, we all have some learning trouble. We're just built that way. But sometimes we've gotto try a little harder. And sometimes,even trying as hard as we can, a child can have trouble. And that's when you stopwatching the magic... and you start looking for the help that is available to you right now. Where your child's learningdisabilities are concerned... ...you're the magician. So... ...it's all rather obvious, isn't it? Be good to yourselves. Well, there you are. Our very first experthas dumped the whole thing right back in our laps, which is where it belongs, isn't it? Yes, it is. Our children, yours and mine, are challenged when they're born. The world has got to work.

Our children have got to make it work. I have high hopes that they will. It's their right to learn justas much and as well as they can. A child who can learn, wants to learn, and isn't learning is a small part of the world gone wrong. Since we haven't yet thought of a way to buy, invent, or evenmagically conjure happiness, learning remains the key to the future for our children and for all of us. Something new Not so easy Yet it shines in our eyes The truth that love and understanding In our hearts Will help our hearts Grow wise.

ANNOUNCER:The Puzzle Children was made possible

by a grant from the 3M Company.