I grew up in the 80s and when no one in high schools or universities was given special consideration because of a learning disability. Except for dyslexia, no one even ever mentioned any of the numerous learning disabilities that have now emerged, along with a booming industry both governmental and private to serve these disabilities. I did have a friend who was dyslexic, and she struggled mightily in school with all her classes, even math. She was never going to be admitted to an Ivy League. Now, I am seeing children in school with my own children who are being admitted into Ivy League schools while simultaneously being allotted extra time on all of their high school exams, as well as their SAT and ACT. To me, it defies logic and explanation that on the one hand a student is academically gifted enough that he or she can gain admittance to an Ivy League school, but on the other hand they have an academic "disability" that enables them to take tests with easier parameters than the so-called normal learners. Even more stunning to me is the newly formed consensus among the LD community that these learning disabilities should carry the same level of legal protection and community concern as those we afford to people who are genuinely struggling to see or to walk or to hear, particularly if the disabled person's only potentially life altering problem is that they may have to attend Vanderbilt because their disability kept them out of Harvard.
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