I have noticed via the large drop in SAT scores the huge number of school reporting failures in grades and the over all lack of trying to spell in chat rooms thanks to them thinking "chat speak" is cool..
I my self can not spell well but I blame my schools. I found that many people are blaming video games PERSONALLY I blame there parents! I think they are letting there children play TOO much and not focus on school work!
If this was multiple choice I'd have picked schools and parents. When I moved to Florida I noticed the locals were mostly VERY uneducated in both grammar and common sense amongst other things. I soon met Moe (the forum member) who was a rare exception and brilliantly intelligent. He pointed out to me how the schools down here were far less detailed and informative in their teaching as it was for you and I up north. I blame the schools as well as the parents who should be home schooling their kids if the district has a poor educational system and or budget.
It's a combination of things. Teachers are forced to stick to material that doesn't always work for their students, but State guidelines don't allow for much variation. Parents, especially in economically poor areas, are working long shifts to cover rent and food so they aren't available to help their child after school. Lastly, some of the responsibility is shouldered by the child. After a certain age, they begin to chose whether or not they are willing to do what it takes to succeed.
It's the perfect storm of bureaucratic crap that has been holding back the US for quite some time. Politicians think they can dictate to teachers what they should do when they are in no position to share their opinion on the matter.
Check out this speaker, he's got some pretty good points on the education system.
I typed out a paragraph about devolution but realised it might offend some people so I'm just going to say that maybe devolution has something to do with it.
There is a strong separation between genetic learning disabilities and failures of parents and school systems. While our genetics are affected by our environments, a genuine disability needs more than just what a parent or teacher can do, that would require therapy, not just better education. If disabilities are raising, you can blame our genetics and our susceptibility to mutations in our bodies from the plenty of mutagens that are raising in use. But none of this can be pinned on teachers or parents, while they have their own failures, they can not be linked.
As far as a weakening of our students educations, this is certainly so, and part of this is a failed school system and poor teachers, but that's not to say students don't need to step it up themselves.
The ACT and SAT, as well as any other standardized test are a major farce to our ability to gauge someones intelligence, something so complex that tests like these are simply a joke. The scores are practically meaningless.
As far as 'kids getting dumber,' the world has the largest access to knowledge we've ever had, we all have the option of expanding our own education. What this can't change is the lack of critical thinking many children are dealing with. Mathematics are a major part of this, but many teachers just want students to memorize the math instead of properly teaching it and letting their students think and figure things out on their own, which is easily the number one most critical ability human beings have, problem solving.
I wouldn't say learning disabilities are on the rise. I would say a lack of proper parenting and poor educational standards are the culprit. Honestly, schools in the US at least are focused solely on testing rather then on learning. I'm glad I graduated high school when I did, before the government went absolutely bonkers with tests. Even so, I spent the majority of my high school years frantically trying to memorize as much information as possible, take a government test over it, and then dump it as quickly as possible so I could memorize more useless information to take another test. That's not learning, and shouldn't count as 'education'.
Now, I would say that learning disabilities could be contributing towards the lower state test scores. I have a learning disability, mostly focused around math- it takes me a lot longer and a lot of repetition to grasp the concepts. I also had trouble reading up until the third grade, but once I finally got it, I shot up to higher than a twelfth grade reading level and started devouring books. You wouldn't know I had those problems though because the school took time to teach me how to address them properly and to learn further study skills. I made all A's in high school algebra 1, 2, and college algebra because I went to my teachers classroom every day at lunch and worked on my homework and studied.
But if I had to rush through everything as students have to do now, and spend all my time in a frantic struggle to cram as much information as quickly as possible... Well, I imagine students who have trouble with study skills or other problems are going to struggle and it's going to be reflected in test scores.
However, I do think a lot of students don't apply themselves as they should. I suffered through years of jocks getting away with cheating, unfinished papers and poor scores, preps chatting in class and being disruptive... It's frustrating to be surrounded by kids who can't be bothered to care. If you don't care, get out. I don't want you wasting my time! I had to spend the first two years of college doing 'peer reviews' of those idiots lousy papers for composition one and two. It's disgraceful that these students can't write even a semi-solid paper by college age.
As to whether video games and parents contribute... I'd say it's the parents not making sure their kids are focusing on their work before they play. More the parent's fault then the games (Or sports, drugs, other activities) themselves. Parents need to be parenting, and sometimes that means you can't be your child's best friend, or let your kids walk all over you. Their education should come first, even if that means little Tommy can't go play football.
I don't think so.
People are just trying to name things now. Earlier we didn't know how different the symptoms are ....and just that's it.
If anything, kids are getting smarter and smarter.
I feel there is not enough data to come out with an accurate answer on the number of people with learning disabilities because most countries in the past may not have track who have learning problems and who does not have problems learning. Many people also don't go to a psychologist/therapist because of how expensive it is to hirea psychologist to accurately diagnosis a person with a learning disability, so there may not ever be an accurate number of people with learning disabilities, and who doesn't have a learning disability.
