You didn’t cause it, but one of the students sitting in front of you this year with learning disabilities or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may have already given up on learning. That’s because constant failure or confusion has a huge impact on motivation that can weaken even the strong-minded.

When students are labeled as “special education students,” they may experience what psychologist Claude Steele calls “stereotype threat,” which happens when fear of doing something that would confirm a stereotype leads to subconscious self-handicapping. This stress response reduces willingness to solve problems, impairs concentration on academic tasks and reduces the rate of performance on reading comprehension tasks.

It takes an extraordinary child with strong support (and many tutors) to keep taking one or two exams over and over again until he finally passes, which may explain why students with disabilities have only a 31 percent graduation rate. Many students don’t know what we teachers know about learning: that everyone learns differently. All they know is that their classes are confusing, the teacher goes too fast, they keep doing poorly on tests and they can’t take “fun” classes because they are being taught the same basic strategies year after year.

Children with learning disabilities who view their disability in positive terms have higher self-esteem, more accurate self-perception of general intellectual ability, greater social acceptance and better behavior. Fortunately, there are a few things we can do as educators to foster this kind of attitude in our students.

• Analyze your own preconceptions of students with learning disabilities. Be honest with yourself. Without realizing it, you may have formed preconceived notions about certain “types” of students. Students pick up on a teacher’s perceptions of their abilities, and when they do, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Educate yourself. Studies have found positive correlations between a teacher’s special education background and attitude toward students with disabilities. In other words, the more you learn about how to educate your students, the more confident you’ll feel about your ability to educate them — and this will be reflected in your teaching. All Kinds of Minds (allkindsofminds.org) has some great free online courses that will help you explore language, memory and attention issues.
• Neurologists have found that some brains take different paths to learning the same thing. When you see students becoming frustrated, you may want to explain to students about how brains learn in different ways.
• Have students write or draw pictures of their strengths, and refer to them often. Then work with them to create goals that address their weaknesses. Revisit the goals during your student-teacher conferences.
• Expose yourself and students to stories about people with learning disabilities and ADHD. It’s important to remember that what works for one child might not work for another, so it helps to have a broad range of stories to draw on.

In your classroom, you might consider implementing Universal Design for Learning, a set of guidelines that encourages teachers to tailor their lessons to various learning styles. Cast.org has great information on Universal Design for Learning, and some EngageNY lessons (engageny.org) address its theories.

What does Universal Design for Learning look like in a learning environment? I did an amazing 1st-grade math unit with my daughter, who has ADHD and hated math. We used every possible learning modality (seeing, hearing, touch, etc.): We played matching games with numbers and dots, pretended to be “number detectives” to find hidden numbers, counted by twos while doing squats, whispered odd numbers while yelling even numbers, and made up story problems involving dolls and animals. As a result, my daughter has come to love math and uses these strategies in everyday situations.

In an upper grade, Universal Design for Learning might incorporate watching videos, comparing pictures, participating in shared reading and writing and analyzing political cartoons.

Always keep in mind that there is no “cure” or “fix” for learning disabilities and ADHD. A learning disability is not a disease; it’s simply one aspect of a brain that works differently. It pays concrete dividends (in terms of learning, behavior, self-perception and anti-bullying) for children to acknowledge and celebrate their differences. As a teacher, it’s your job to show your students with disabilities that they have amazing brains, too.