Students with Academic

Deficit: Its implications to

Learning and Teaching
Strategies
 Goal
• To empower St. Joseph’s College
Faculty to inspire students with
academic deficits to see themselves
as resilient beings who have personal
strengths and weaknesses.
 Objectives:
• To identify the different learning
functions of the brain (e.g.
attention,memory, language, visual-
spatial abilities, sequencing) and to
explain how these affect a student’s
performance in school.
• To enumerate ways by which deficits
in these functions can be addressed.
 Introduction
• Achievement and prestige are basic
human needs. School is the likeliest
place to experience these, yet
students with academic deficits learn
the opposite of these in the most
cruel ways, in the very place where
they should learn about SUCCESS.
 What is academic deficit?
• This term is used to cover a wide range of
learning difficulties that may or may not
result in discrepancies between
intelligence and achievement.

• Learning disorder not is not a disease. It

represents variations in brain function that
affects a student performance in school.
• There are many types of learning
disorders. Students with these
problems need to understand
themselves and to be understood by
significant adults such as parents
and teachers.
 General Characteristics
• Intelligence- average or near
average intelligence
• Perception & Motor Skills
Muscle coordination problems
-Poor auditory/visual discrimination
- Awkward, clumsy and
uncoordinated
* Memory Difficulties
Problems in attention, memory,
metacognition, organization, categorizing,
arranging and planning.
* Difficulty in solving problems and
generating ideas
* Visual Perceptual difficulties (the brain has
difficulty in figuring out information coming
from the senses.
- Confusion in directional orientation
• Behavior & Affective Characteristics
- May be hyperactive or hypoactive
- Easily distracted, have short attention span, show
memory deficits, act impulsively, overeact with
intense or surprising emotions.
- Have serious difficulties in social adjustment
- Unable to predict the consequences of their
behavior and lack social comprehension skills
- Provoke negative reactions from others
- inability to interact effectively with others
frequently in low-self-esteem
Academic learning
• Dyslexia a symbolic disorder where there is poor ability to learn to interpret
symbols.
• Dysgraphia-a difficulty in automatically remembering and mastering the
sequence of muscle motor movement and can be observed in their written
works.
• Dyscalculia a learning disability wherein a student has difficulty in performing
math calculations; difficulty in math processes.
• Language Disorders (difficulties in the ability to understand and use language.
Causes of Academic Deficits
• Attention (also known as concentration)
* born that way (i.e. inherited)
* a weakness in the brainstem (regulates sleeping and
waking)
* a frontal lobe problem
• Memory (process which we retain information)
* difficulty reconstructing information
* not enough depth of processing
 * Does not understand or can’t handle the
way information comes in (visually, in
language, in a sequence)
* Choosing the wrong information to store

1.Environmental/Ecological Model- poor

learning environments. Inappropriate school
instruction, lack of motivation, ingestion of
lead and drug addiction
• Brain Damage Model- sustained brain
damage, impairment of th CNS, minimal
brain dysfunction, complication surrounding
pregnancy, maternal illness.
• Organic and biological Model-chemical found
in specific food coloring or flavoring, vitamin
deficiencies, imbalances in the
neurotransmitter
• Genetic Model-inherited influence
 General Academic
Strategies for Academic
Deficit Students
• Accommodation -Allow a long period of time for the
student who processes information more slowly to
complete his work assignment
• Give the student an extra credit assignment to bring
up a poor grade
• Task-Analysis- Provide for a short incremental
steps. The period of exposure should be adequate to
provide for even learning in the learning sequence.
• Emphasize the main principles of the
subject matter.
• Materials should utilize more than one
receptor system.
• Don’t assume that the student has prior
knowledge about the subject matter
you are introducing; question him
• Let him know what you expect from him.
standards and expectations are just as important
for the student with learning problems.
• Structure academic tasks to meet the student’s
current level of functioning.
• Use a content area contract approach to assist the
student with learning problems accomplish short-
range goal
• Peer Mediated Instruction - Assign a peer tutor
to the student to: make certain that student
understand directions, read important
materials, drill orally, summarize orally, and
make suggestions for improvement in work
samples.
• Provide extra practice through extra
assignments from workbook or work sheets
covering specific process.
• Social Skills Training- Reinforce correct responses
via social means.
• Devise a variety of approaches for teaching the
same concept. This approach reinforces new
learning and encourages the student to apply the
concept in different situations.
Computer Assisted Instruction-use of computer
software for instruction, tutorial sessions.
• Inclusion strategies- services delivery
model for inclusion, a highly structured
prescriptive learning with build-in
diagnostic procedures.
• Cognitive Instruction-emphasis on
attending, responding, rehearsal, recall
and transfer of information
• Study skills training -metacognition skills
training such as learning how to take notes
and test.
• Providing structure and setting limits- guided
learning; use of reinforcements; consistent and firm
limits.
• Direct instructions- specific target learning are
identified, provides a highly structured and
organized teaching strategy
• Multisensory approach –highlight learning by
seeing, hearing,touching and movement; repetition
of tasks, employing many learning modalities.
• Walk to the student’s seat as frequently as
possible to assist and reassure him.
• Help the student develop strategies for
organizing time and materials.
• Relate concepts you are discussing to
concrete experiences or other concepts
taught earlier.
• Present new tasks or concepts in an
uncomplicated manner with as few
unknown as possible.