Module 2

This week’s reading had some interesting points to read about.  Just like last week there was a lot of info to soak in.  The first that intrigued me was first thing in chapter 4 when they talk about language and labels of intelligence.  The section talks about how we should use person-first language.  This is where you will put the emphasis on the student not the disability.  For example, you would say “student with a learning disability” and not “learning disabled student.  “Actually, the individual has many characteristics and abilities, and to focus on the disability is to misrepresent the individual” (p. 123).  Of course, like other things that we have read in this text and other psychology texts there is a contradictory point.  Many people with a disability prefer an identity first reference.  One of those types of references would be someone to be called deaf instead of hearing impaired. The next part of the reading starts us on the of intelligence.  Of course, we all know that intelligence is the ability to acquire knowledge for solving problems.  The first theory discuss is Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence.  This theory reads that a person has eight separate like logical-mathematical, linguistic, musical.  He witnessed veterans and students that excelled in one of the intelligences, but not all which was what led him to believe that they are all separate.  Critics have stated that the intelligences are not independent and there are correlations between them. 

Next, I will skip forward to creativity.  I feel intelligence and creativity are closely related.  Most people that display creativity also is highly intelligent.  But of course, there are some exception like author John Irving who had dyslexia.  The reading tells us that creativity is important because with all the problems in this world we will need someone to come up with a creative solution of the problem.  It also says “we do not have to choose between understanding and creativity.  Strategies that support creativity also support deep understanding in school subjects” (pg. 135).  I really found the section of learning styles interesting.  I always thought I had a learning style of visualization growing up, but after watching the video it made me realize it was not a style, but more a preference.  I realized I can learn by using any style, I am just better at learning when it was visual. 

The section about students with learning challenges and disability really hit home with me.  My fiancée has a little cousin that falls under this area.  He has a few disabilities that has been thrown around by the doctors to describe him, but one of the most recent one is ADHD.  This has made his school life and home life difficult at times.  Like the book says, “ADHD is usually is diagnosed in elementary school, but research suggests that problems with attention and hyperactivity may begin to show up as early as 3 years of age” (pg. 150).    That is where it has affected him the most.  He will be 8 this summer and he still has not been officially diagnosed until recently because he was too young.  In the mean time it has caused issues in school without any way to treat it for so long because he was never diagnosed as ADHD even though most teachers can see the symptoms of it.  So, he has fallen behind socially and physically because of all the medicines that have tried. 

The one section of the development of language that I connected to was about the built-in bias of children labels things to a class of similar objects.  We have a family friend who has a 1-year old little girl and she is still learning her words.  Well she has a dog named Gus and she knows what a dog is, but she thinks all dogs are the same.  When she is at our house, she calls our dog Gus instead of doggie or even by his name.  The last part of the reading was about culture and diversity.  A lot of the reading is information that we have read about in other classes.  The one fact that still astonishes my mind is the number of students under the poverty line.  “About 21% of Americans under the age of 18 live below the poverty level” (pg. 224). Unfortunately, I feel that this number will continue to increase.  There is a large correlation between poverty and achievement.