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Education Plus
Tackling slow learners and under achievers
Slow learners are individuals with below average intelligence and they are not mentally retarded.
Photo: G. Moorthy
R.Rajakumari, Executive Director, M.S.Chellamuthu Trust and Research Foundation, Madurai.
Slow learners and under achievers are common in any classroom. Despite all the push from parents and teachers, some students will not be able to touch the expected level of performance. How to motivate those students and bring them into the common fold? Who should take the lead in tuning up such youngsters?
Experts analysed the reasons at a national seminar held at Thiagarajar College of Preceptors in Madurai on May 3 on the topic ‘Enhancing the efficacy of slow learners and under achievers’. “Giving some solutions to this issue is a felt need by so many families because youngsters have been silently suffering,” said R. Rajakumari, executive director, M. S. Chellamuthu Trust and Research Foundation, an institution involved in mental healthcare though professional counselling. Firstly, the difference must be noted. Slow learners are individuals with below average intelligence and they are not mentally retarded. Their IQ level would be as low as 80 and below. On the other hand, under achievers perform below their potential because of motivational problems; their academic performance is disturbed due to one or more reasons, she explained.
Signs and symptoms
Ms. Rajakumari wanted people to understand first the symptoms so as to identify slow learners and under achievers.
• They strive to improve but yet fail to show results.
• Some show disinterest, irritability, emotional outburst and have attention-seeking behaviour due to consistent failure.
• Making careless mistakes.
• Having difficulty in concentrating on tasks or games.
• Seeming not to listen when spoken to.
• Losing and forgetting things.
• Being easily distracted.
Genetic influences, brain development, environmental impacts, problems during pregnancy or delivery, faulty learning, family dynamics and pathology, over expectations and pressures, too much study and no play, distractions and confusion like whose teaching methodology is right: tuition teacher or school teacher?
According to Ms. Rajakumari, parents/teachers should understand that a child has a problem. Then, seek professional help from psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors and special educators. Memory techniques and individualised education programme, special study skills, medication for brain stimulation and behaviour modification are among the tips.
The vice-chancellor of Madurai Kamaraj University, R. Karpaga Kumaravel, summed up by saying, “Tackling learning disability is a major challenge and it cannot be ignored.”
SHASTRY V. MALLADY
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