W LEARNER SERIES~ewell C. Kephart, Ph.DE. Merrill Publishing Company, Columbus,~art of this book may be reproduced in anytl, including photocopy, recording, or anytl system, without permission in writing fromok Number: 0-675-09109-8 casebound 0-675-09108-x paperbackCatalog Card Number: 72-0750529 10 -- 76 75 74 73 72e United States of AmericaForeword The child with learning disability is a "different" child. His behavioris unpredictable. His responses are bizarre and often uninterpretable.His likes and dislikes seem completely random. One never knows whathe is going to do and even he does not often know why he did it. He isan enigma to his teacher, a riddle to his peers and a puzzle to his parents.Most of all he is a source of continual frustration to himself for he cannever predict with certainty how his actions are going to come out. Professionals in schools and clinics who have been forced to dealdirectly with the difficult learning problems of these children have be-come aware of the nature of their difficulties. We have invented technicalterms and identified symptomatology which will permit us to talk to eachother about them. We have not, however, reduced this technical jargonto everyday behaVior occurrences so that our language is intelligible toother people. As a result many classroom teachers see the same behaviorwe see but cannot connect what they see with our polysyllabic language.Therefore, despite our rhetoric, they do not really understand the child'sproblem nor can they interpret his bizarre behavior. The present volume attempts to describe learning disabilities in termsof common behavior manifestations which can be seen in any classroom.These behaviors are interpreted in terms of logical explanations basedon describable, even though not completely empirically established, meth-ods of processing data used by the child. Taken together they representan operational definition of learning disability. Using such descriptivedefinitions, the teacher can at least recognize some of the behaviors shesees as evidence of learning problems and can hypothesize an explanationfor the child's seemingly unintelligible acts. Instead of blaming thesebehaviors on stupidity, orneriness or lack of motivation, she can inter-pret them for what they are. Great as is the quandary of the teacher, that of the parent is evengreater. Too often, the parent is the most forgotten element in the entirecomplex. We forget that he has the same problems we have but he hasthem in greatly magnified intensity. Whereas we have this child for a