As was mentioned when defining intellectual disability, this group tends to have more of what would be referred to as global impairments meaning that their disability affects them in all parts of their lives and in all academic areas in the same way. This is very different from the peaks and valleys that are observed when working with individuals with learning disabilities who might have difficulty reading and decoding text but have very strong skills in math. Individuals with intellectual disabilities have the same skills across the board. They would have the same difficulties with reading that they would with math.

Another main difference between the two is that individuals with intellectual disabilities have difficulty with transferring information. For instance, if you teach them some new information like using a computer program, you may teach them numerous times how to independently start up the program etc. However, in some cases, they may never be able to do it on their own. Also, you might find that once they do learn how to use the program, they can follow the steps that you have taught them to use that particular program but cannot transfer this skill to using a different piece of software. The key difference is that individuals with intellectual disabilities cannot take information and transpose it somewhere else. For example, you may be successful in teaching individuals with an intellectual disability how to decode text for reading but they will have difficulty with comprehension.

Learning Strategies for Learning Disabilities

Individuals with learning disabilities have skills that make it possible for them to learn how to use strategies and accommodations to help them pursue their goals. However, when teaching learners with learning disabilities, it is important to build on their strengths. It takes time to get to know what learners' strengths are and learners may or may not be able to articulate what their strengths are. The following are strategies that can be used based on what you do know about the learner, and has been taken from Pat Hatt's "Supporting and Sharing: Best Practices in Learning Disabilities Practitioner Training."

If the learner:

• Can remember words they know
• Guesses words that look like the word eg. attraction or attractive
• Has trouble with big words
• Has trouble with pronunciation
• Can't blend sounds well
• May know sounds but mixes them up when sounding out
• Doesn't respond to rhyming clues
• Spells based on known words ³¹