The graduate program in Special Education: Learning Disabilities at American University is based on the educational philosophy that all individuals have the ability to learn and succeed. The learning disabled population requires special teaching to learn and succeed. It is the aim of the program to prepare learning disabilities specialists who can structure creative learning environments for these individuals through diagnostic-prescriptive training.
This method of teaching emphasizes the need for teachers to be sensitive to the individual needs and learning styles of each student in their classroom. Graduate students in the program learn how to diagnose the specific strengths and disabilities of individual students in order to plan effective programs. The good teacher uses a variety of instructional approaches to teach to students’ strengths while remediating weakness.
Graduate students in the program need to know normal child development so they can recognize lags in this development and be prepared to teach to the student’s developmental level. Graduates of the Special Education: Learning Disabilities program go on to practice diagnostic-prescriptive teaching as school specialists in learning disabilities, resource room specialists, and as teachers working with learning disabled students in contained classrooms.
The program recognizes the impact of cultural background and environment on the individuality of the student and is designed to prepare teachers who can embrace such diversity. By increasing the awareness and appreciation of cultural diversity in its graduate students, the program can prepare specialists who can differentiate between behaviors caused by cultural or environmental issues and behaviors caused by learning disabilities.
These principles of acknowledging, understanding, and embracing differences are reflected in the American University’s School of Education, Teaching & Health’s organizing principles and professional commitments for all its teacher education programs.
