What do you know?

About Learning Disabilities

Did you know…?

As many as 1 in 5 people in the U.S. has a learning

disability

That means, in Washington,

1,279,160 individuals live

with learning disabilities

And by the way…

That’s more than a month’s worth of visitors

to Disneyland

Did you know…?

51% of students receiving special education services through the public schools

are identified as having learning disabilities

(Source: 25th Annual Report to Congress, 2005)

Learning Disabilities

Account for more than all other disabilities

combined!!

That’s more than all of these together:

Autism Spectrum Mental ImpairmentDevelopmental Delay Physical DisabilityVisual Impairment Hearing ImpairmentADHD Mental Retardation

• Specific Learning Disabilities increased 22% between 1978 – 2003

Did you know…?

• There was an increase of 38% in the last decade of this study alone

(Source: National Institutes of Health, 2003)

Did you know…?There are nearly

3 million children (ages 6-21) with a diagnosed Specific LD

Some perspective…They would fill up Qwest Field

45 times!!!

These numbers do not include children in private and religious schools or home-schooled children

(Source: 25th Annual Report to Congress, U.S. Department of Education, 2005)

“The U.S. Department of Education

collects and publishes an array of data on these children and young adults

(k-12)…”

“Once these students leave formal schooling,

the data trail unfortunately disappears,

making it virtually impossible to gather reliable data on

this older community of citizens.”Dr. Sheldon Horowitz

Did you know…?

39% of children with learning disabilities

drop out of high school

(Source: Sheldon Horowitz, NCLD Director of Professional Services, LDNews, March 2006)

And naturally…

Many of these children grow up and come to

your programs as adults.

30 to 80 percent of adult learners have learning

challenges that negatively impact their

learning( http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/faqs.html#learning )

Adults with diagnosed or undiagnosed learning

disabilities are estimated to make up

about 50% of adult education

students

Approximately 38 – 44% of TANF

recipients are individuals with

learning disabilities(Washington and Kansas TANF studies)

And…

According to a 1997 survey, 50% of inmates in state or federal prisons, (Harlow) reported that they did not

have a high school diploma.

Of this group,

66% were identified as having learning

disabilities(Harlow, 1997)

To make matters even more challenging:

• Few professionals are adequately trained to work with adults who

display characteristics associated with

learning disabilities

• Few adult education systems have a process in place to

identify and appropriately serve adults with

learning disabilities

And yet…

“The expectations placed on graduating high school students today, especially

given the highly technical and increasingly specialized nature of the workforce, have never

been higher.”

So…

“The challenges faced by students

with learning disabilities in high school

and beyond are, in a word,

enormous.”Dr. Sheldon Horowitz

Did you know…?

Washington State has been working to address this

need in adult basic education

since 2000.

You are a part of that effort.