Customer Reviews

The Learning Disabilities Trap : How to Save Your Child from the Perils of Special Education

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This book is dangerously erroneous and misleading.

Just a few (very few) examples:

On page 13 Unger says that children diagnosed as learning disabled are entitled to a free and appropriate special education program that must be approved by the parent (I won't even get started on the holes in that statement), then goes on to say "If the parent demands a program the school district cannot provide and can prove the child needs that program, in many instances the district must still pay for it, even if it means sending the child to a private school."

If it can be "proven" that the child "needs" the program, and the school district can't provide the program, then of COURSE they have to pay for it. Is the parent supposed to pay taxes that go to educate other people's children and pay for their special needs child that the public school can't figure out what to do with? I'd love to see some figures on exactly how many children in special education actually end up going out of district- I don't know after reading this book, because Harlow G. Unger isn't very forthcoming with numbers, sources, etc.

He does mention that 15-20% of children with critical learning impediments outgrow them. Doesn't that mean that 80-85% of children with critical learning impediments DON'T outgrow them? Is it wise sit around doing nothing from ages 3-8 (or whenever Unger feels it's safe to assume the disability is not simply developmental and will quietly go away) and hope your child is one of the 15-20%?

Mr. Unger addresses this on page 25 under his section "Rushing to Judgement." Too many sentences in this section make me cringe- I can't quote them all.... I'd have to pick this one: "An incompetent teacher or thoughtless parent can easily convert a temporary developmental learning impediment into a permanent one." Huh? Based on what? Apparently Unger's gut feeling that if you try and force a child to learn what they are developmentally not ready to learn (a hot potato topic to begin with- see E.D. Hirsch's thoughts on this) you will set them up for failure and cause a learning impediment. So, again, a smart parent would sit around and hope their child outgrows their learning difficulties. A "thoughtless" parent would pursue early intervention from qualified therapists and education specialists.

There's so much, TOO much, that's upsetting in this book. In case anyone still has their credit card out and is planning to buy it I'll point out one more thing. On page 28 Unger tries to nip the special education process in the bud as far back as the referral stage. In his section "Referral Bias" he talks about how imcompetent teachers sometimes refer problem children for evaluation (which is a valid and interesting point). Just when you think the book might be starting to have some merit he goes on to follow the word "evaluation" with "for special education, which every child knows is reserved for 'dumb kids'...Just the threat of such referrals is enough to frighten a child into questioning his or her ability and weaken the motivation to learn." Time and time again dangerously misleading opinions are presented as facts.