led to learn because of rage--an abiding, sucked-in anger that began with a label of Wrongness and grew, cumulatively, with each new affront to his self-worth (Ungerleider, 1985, 205).
This points to one of the first problems associated with learning disability, the fact that it undermines the development of a child's sense of self and sense of value so that it creates a lowered self-esteem such as would block learning in most children without the added problems of the learning disability itself.
Some learning disabilities have been identified as having a neurological basis and as constituting full-blown disorders, and attention problems often come under this heading. Attention deficit disorders (ADDs) have been classified as part of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM) which specifically contains changes in the way attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is diagnosed and subtyped. These changes were developed through a long and laborious process by expert consultations and empirical field trials to produce a diagnostic category that is more reliable as a diagnosis (McBurnett, Lahey, and Pfiffner, 1993, 108). The terminology and classification of ADD has been confusing given that each year a new version of the DSM has included a major revision of the ADD criteria, and children with the same clinical features have been given one of half a dozen different labels. Criteria for diagnosis have appeared and disappeared. The first diagnosis of ADD in DSM was called "Hyperkinetic Reaction of Childhood" in 1968. Criteria were revolutionized in 1980 with a broadening of the assessment into a multiaxial system and by specifying criteria giving a case the diagnosis of a particular syndrome. The new system had clear advantages over the old. One of the DSM-III criteria for the diagnosis of ADD was that a minimum set of behavioral described symptoms would be present. Fourteen symptoms were arranged i...