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Failure to succeed in school and poor social skills
can result in long-term problems for individuals with learning disabilities.
Chronic unemployment or underemployment is all too common. To understand
and to effectively manage job training or financial assistance programs,
it is wise to keep the need for adult literacy programming and social
skills training in mind.
Here are a few facts about the relationship between learning disabilities
and low income populations:
- 62% of students with learning disabilities were unemployed one
year after graduation.
- 35% of students identified with learning disabilities drop out
of high school – twice the rate of their non-LD peers.
- The U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice found that “LD youth
were twice as likely to be judged delinquent by the courts than
non-LD youth” as a result of inability to repeat their stories
correctly, inability to follow sequences, inability to answer
demand questions or to be declared oppositional.
- 65.4% of households in which family members report having specific
learning disabilities have an annual income of less than $25,000
as compared with 38.8% of the general population.
- Difficulty with reading comprehension and following a systematic
birth control plan are among the top reasons teenage girls identified
for NOT using birth control aids
- 50% of females with learning disabilities will be mothers (many
of them single) within one year of leaving school.
- Within Washington state’s 1997 welfare caseload, 54% had
learning disabilities; 35% were classified as “slow learners;”
14% had mental retardation and 5% have other learning needs.
- Substance addictions and learning disabilities are the most
common impediments to keeping welfare clients from attaining and
maintaining employment.
- 60% of adults with severe literacy problems have previously
undetected or untreated learning disabilities.
August 2000 |
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