Video 1. How Difficult Can This Be? The F.A.T. City Workshop depicts a series of simulations to help non-learning disabled people understand what it is like to have learning difficulties. Rick Lavoie also provides suggestions for how to help students facing these challenges.

Questions

Below are several questions to help guide your learning while you watch the video.

Introduction

What does F.A.T stand for in this video?

Anxiety

What is a typical reaction humans have when experiencing anxiety? What do we insist kids do when they respond in this way?

Processing

When the teacher asks a question how are mainstream and learning disabled (LD) children different in processing that questions?

Risk-Taking

How do we unintentionally decrease the likelihood of LD students from taking risks?

Visual Perception

Can we motivate LD children to “try harder” when something is too difficult? Why or why not?

Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension has more to do with ______________________, not vocabulary!

Effects of Perception on Behavior

Why do LD students often say “I didn’t do anything wrong” or “I don’t know what I did” when they get into trouble?

Visual-Motor Coordination

How does difficulty with visual-motor integration effect some LD students?

Oral Expression

What is dysnomia? Why are LD students more likely to experience high rates of this?

Reading & Decoding

Children that are able to decode words to read may not be comprehending what is read. What explanation does the video offer for why this happens?

Auditory-Visual Capability

Why do books on tape benefit some LD students?

Fairness

According to the video, what is fairness?

Commentary

What were some of the effects that the participants reported feeling during this simulation? Is this a fair representation as to what LD students may experience?