Responsive teaching for students experiencing learning difficulties

The diagnostic category of 'learning disability' has much less relevance in Australia than it does in the United States of America where it is tightly tied to the provision of funding. In Australia, the broad term 'learning difficulties' is most commonly used to refer to those students who experience academic and school-related problems. Although there are obvious parallels with the approach taken in the USA, there are significant divergences. The major difference is that there is no assumption in Australia that students classified as experiencing learning difficulties have an underlying impairment, although some of them certainly may. Students with learning difficulties tend to be a diverse group who demonstrate low achievement in academic subjects for a myriad of reasons. Thus, in Australia and New Zealand, under this broad definition of learning difficulties, at least 20 per cent of school students are considered to have problems in academic areas. Of these students, approximately five per cent are considered to have learning disabilities in a specific area, most commonly reading (Westwood & Graham, 2000). The latter percentage is comparable to the seven per cent of school-aged children in North America considered to have some form of learning disabilities (Graham & Bailey, 2007). This article focuses on the five per cent of students with significant learning disabilities in Australia's school-age population.