fear
another emotional difficulty for adults with learning disabilities is fear. this emotion is often masked by anger or anxiety. tapping into the fear behind the anger and/or the anxiety response is often the key for adults to cope with the emotional fallout of learning disabilities.
feelings of fear may be related one or more of the following issues:
fear of being found out
fear of failure
fear of judgment or criticism
fear of rejection
fear of being found out
many adults with learning disabilities live with fear of being found out. they develop coping strategies to hide their disability. for example, an adult who can hardly read might pretend to read a newspaper. other adults may develop gregarious personalities to hide their difficulties or focus on other abilities that do not present learning barriers. unfortunately some adults will have developed negative strategies such as quitting their job rather than risking the humiliation of being terminated because their learning disability makes it difficult for them to keep up with work demands.
the fear of being found out is particularly troublesome for many older adults who have never been diagnosed with a learning disability or those who received inappropriate support. such adults were frequently misdiagnosed with mental retardation, inappropriately placed in programs for the mentally disabled, and/or stigmatized by teachers and classmates. in later life, these adults often return to learning through adult literacy programs in order make up for lost educational opportunities. seeking help is a difficult step forward for these adults because it requires them to stop hiding their disability. the simple act of entering a classroom can be an anxiety producing experience for adults who have been wrongly labeled and/or mistreated by the educational system. for these adults, returning to a learning environment is truly an act of courage!
low literacy skills and academic difficulties are not the only type of learning disabilities adults try to hide. adults with social skill difficulties may live in constant fear of revealing social inadequacies. for example, an adult who has trouble understanding humour, may pretend to laugh at a joke even through they don't understand it. they may also hide their social difficulties by appearing to be shy and withdrawn. on the other hand, hyperactive adults may cover up their attention difficulties by using a gregarious personality to entertain people.
fear of failure
the national adult literacy survey, 1992, found that 58% of adult with self-reported learning disabilities lacked the basic functional reading and writing skills needed to experience job and academic success (kirsch, 1993). most of these adults have not graduated high school due to the failure of the school system to recognize and/or accommodate their learning disability. needless to say, adult literacy programs are a second chance to learn the basic academic skills missed out in public school. as mentioned above, going back into an educational environment is often a fearful experience for adults with learning disabilities. one of the main reasons for this is the fear of failure. many adults reason that, if they have failed before, what is to stop them failing again and, if they do fail again, then this failure must mean they, themselves, are failures.. the tendency for adults with learning disabilities to personalize failure (i.e. failure makes me a failure) is perhaps the biggest self-esteem buster for adult learners. educators need to be aware of these fears to help learner's understand that failure does not make them a failure and making mistakes is a part of the learning process.
for most people, anxiety about failing is what motivates them to succeed, but for people with learning disabilities this anxiety can be paralyzing. fear of failure may prevent adults with learning disabilities from taking on new learning opportunities. it might prevent them from participating in social activities, taking on a new job opportunity or enrolling in an adult education course.
one positive characteristic that often helps adults overcome their fear of failure is their ability to come up with innovative strategies to learn and solve problems. these strategies are often attributed to the "learned creativity" that many adults with learning disabilities develop in order to cope with the vocational , social and educational demands in their everyday lives. (gerber, ginsberg,& reiff, 1992)