e--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 harms 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 problem of the learning disability itself.
Some learning disabilities have been found to have a neurological basis, meaning a physical condition in the brain, and these disabilities are called full-blown disorders. 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 identified. These changes were developed through a long and time-consuming process by expert consultations and scientific field trials to produce a category of diagnosis that is more reliable as a diagnosis (McBurnett, Lahey, and Pfiffner, 1993, 108). The terminology and classification of ADD has been confusing because each year a new version of the DSM has included a major revision of the ways to identify ADD, and children with the same clinical symptoms 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. New criteria were added in 1980, and 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 into three groups to match the main features of the disorder--inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. DSM-II...