Learning Disabilities Clarified:
Learning is a Skill (Part Two)

THE DIFFERENT ELEMENTS OF A SKILL

First of all, we should note that every skill must be acquired. As already stated, no human being can do anything at all which he has not learned to do. This must certainly apply to the skill of learning also. However, the attitude so far seems to have been that learning is a fafrotsky. (Something that falls from the sky.) Very little is ever done to teach children to learn.

Secondly, there is usually a particular method involved in any skill. Take swimming as an example. It frequently happens that the first method by means of which a novice swimmer learns to remain afloat is by swimming dog-fashion. Employing such an unorthodox method is good enough to enable one to remain on the surface of the water, but will certainly not help anybody to become a really good swimmer or to take part in swimming galas. Any of the standard swimming strokes presents a far better method of remaining afloat and of proceeding through the water. After having learned one of these strokes, and having received enough practice in this new method of swimming, a person will immediately be turned into a far better swimmer. Strangely enough, though, nothing is ever done to teach children a better method of learning. As stated, this apparently happens because learning is regarded as a fafrotsky.

The third element of any skill has already been mentioned. It is the fact that regular and sustained practice also makes a vast difference to a person’s competence at any skill. Yet children are never taught to practice their learning skills on a regular basis. Most children merely do the most important homework every day, and only study the day before a test or examination.

There is also a fourth, very important element involved in every skill, namely the fact that a skill usually embraces a number of subskills. This can best be explained by means of an example. In order to acquire the skill of playing the piano, a person must possess agile fingers, must know the positions of and the distances between the notes on the piano by touch, must have a keen ear, etc. These faculties can be developed through regular practice of finger exercises, by playing scales and arpeggios and by doing ear training exercises. Through regular and sustained practice of these subskills of the main skill of playing the piano, a person eventually acquires the ability to play the piano.

Now, it so happens that I can also play the piano a little, but only a very little. I doubt, however, whether anybody listening to my clumsy efforts would ever describe me as having a piano-playing-disability. Any reasonable person would understand that if I regularly practice the subskills of playing the piano mentioned earlier, I shall eventually lose my two left hands on the piano.

When we observe the clumsy efforts of a child who tries to learn, however, we readily diagnose him as having a so-called learning disability. The point is that there are also subskills of learning, and regular and sustained practice of these makes a vast difference to a person’s learning ability. If little or nothing has been done yet to help a child to practice and develop these subskills of learning, it is just as illogical to refer to him as having a learning disability as it would be to describe my efforts of the piano in such terms.

This idea seems to present a logical alternative to that of differences in intelligence and so-called learning disabilities when considering discrepancies in learning ability. Its plausibility is strongly substantiated by the enormous successes that have over the past years been achieved with the Audiblox program, which is a program of exercises for the subskills of learning.

Simultaneously, this theory suggests that learning does not take place on a single level, but is rather an action which is accomplished in a sort of layer-fashion. This happens because the acquisition of one skill often makes it possible to master another one. In fact, the way in which our school system is organized is an acknowledgement of this fact. We cannot send a child to university first. He must start at the first class, and then progress year after year to the higher levels of education. At the end of every year the child is also expected to provide proof that he has mastered enough of the knowledge that was presented to him during the year so that it will form a sufficiently firm base on which to start building the knowledge of the following year. The reason for this is that most of what we learn is based on something we learned before.

An example should make this clear. Suppose there was a child who has not yet learned to count. It would be quite impossible to teach such a child to add, subtract, multiply, or divide. This would only become possible after the child has leaned to count. This suggests that counting is a lower-lying skill than calculating, and that mastery of a lower-lying or foundational skill is a prerequisite for mastering any higher-lying skill.

In the same way there are also skills that form the basis or foundation of skills like reading and spelling. If a child, for example, has not adequately mastered the foundational skills of reading, he would be a very poor reader, and there would be no way in which he could be turned into a better reader other than by first practicing and developing these foundational skills of reading. Unless this is done, every other effort is doomed to failure, and doubtless such a child would then be categorized as dyslexic.

The Audiblox program is a program of exercises intended to practice and develop all the foundational skills necessary for school and after-school learning. The correct time to start developing these skills is the preschool period, preferably from about 3 years of age. However, because it is possible through constant and sustained practice of these exercises to develop these skills to a remarkably high level at any time of life, thereby increasing a person’s study ability, persons of any age can benefit from such a program.

Continue to Part Three: SUBSKILLS OF LEARNING