Outcomes
Learning disabilities do not disappear; rather,
students compensate and learn bypass strategies, al-
lowing for academic progress. The long-term out-
come is variable, depending on the type of LD,
degree of impairment, intelligence, environment,
type of interventions provided, and presence of other
disorders. For example, in the case of dyslexia, stu-
dents often show improvement, but the underlying
deficits in phonemic awareness skills prevent the indi-
vidual from reading in an ‘‘automatic,’’ appropriately
speeded fashion.
Conclusions
To adequately understand an LD, the following
areas must be considered: educational achievement,
educational opportunity, cognitive functioning, po-
tential emotional issues, peripheral sensory and neu-
rological function (e.g., vision, hearing), family
history, academic history, and age of onset of the LD.
More specific tests need to be employed as necessary.
Only in this way can a proper diagnosis and effective
intervention plan be made.
See also: DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES
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Glen P. AylwardLOCKE, JOHN (1632–1704)
Born in Somerset, England, John Locke was a noted
philosopher—the first of the British empiricists—
political adviser, and physician. As a student at the
Westminster School, Locke endured the typical mid-
seventeenth-century educational regimen reserved
for adolescent boys: strict adherence to rules, severe
punishments, and rote memorization of both the
principles of grammar and large selections of Latin
and Greek verse. Undoubtedly, Locke’s dissatisfac-
tion with his education at Westminster was responsi-
ble, to a significant extent, for both his stalwart
support of home schooling—the preferred method at
the time for educating girls—and private tutors, as
well as his forceful criticism of institutional education.
But much of Locke’s view on education and the
proper development of children—set forth in a series
of letters to a cousin and later published as Some
Thoughts on Education—also reflected his philosophi-
cal writings on the nature of knowledge and human
understanding (though scholars differ on the precise
relationship between these two bodies of work). In An
Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke argued
that the human mind at birth is a tabula rasa (blank
slate), entirely devoid of any ideas or other mental
content. All the content of the active human mind is
derived from the data of sense experience, which is
then transformed into increasingly complex ideas
through reflection and reason. Crucial to Locke’s
philosophical view, and of great significance for his
thoughts on education, was his emphasis on the role
of experience in the acquisition of knowledge. In-
deed, in the first paragraphs of Some Thoughts on Edu-
cation, Locke contended that the depth and breadth
of one’s knowledge, both moral and practical, is over-
whelmingly a product of education and experience,
as opposed to natural intellect. Locke did recognize
that children are born with differing aptitudes and
inclinations, and he believed that, for the most
part, these natural elements could not be signifi-
cantly altered. It is for this reason, Locke argued, that
curricula must be designed that fit the parameters of
a child’s natural genius. But without experience these
aptitudes cannot be detected nor, of course, devel-
oped. And children are best able to develop theirLOCKE, JOHN 243