Children with learning disabilities usually face multiple difficulties in relationships at school, home, and at work. As children and adults, they encounter problems with learning new material, and in dealing appropriately, with new environmental and work situations, which frequently require following new or different sets of directions. When an individual is unable, or finds it difficult, to understand and perform the behavior expected in the situation, the person's self esteem suffers. This lowered self esteem is also a result of the learning disabled individual recognizing that there is a discrepancy between the academic learning that is expected of a normal child, and what it is expected that he will learn and retain in school. Teacher and parent expectations are usually different for the individual with learning disabilities. Self esteem can be measured by more than one method. By using different methods, either a global or domain-specific measure, the differential in levels of self esteem between normal individuals and individuals who are learning disabled changes. This paper will discuss the impact of different types of learning environments on children and young adults with learning disabilities and how these programs can affect the learning disabled individual's self esteem.
The self esteem of a child with learning disabilities is generally accepted to be lower than that of a comparable child without learning disabilities. These children often have a poor self-concept and do not understand or accept the limitations of having a learning disability (Yuan, 1994, p. 301). Older children and young adults with learning disabilities are frequently unwilling to ask for information and help to make certain that their special needs are met. Most learning disabled people tend to be passive, reluctant learners. These attributes contribute to the lower self-perceptions of scholastic competence and behavioral conduct found...