Abstract:

Learning disabilities are typically diagnosed in early elementary school with the need for services diminishing in secondary school due to learned coping strategies. But as students leave high school and head into the job market or to higher education, they often feel out of balance because the supports from academic instructors and the educational system as a whole are no longer in place. The same strategies used in K-12 to understand text meanings are oftentimes not successful in college due to increasingly difficult academic expectations (Nordell, 2009). Young adults with learning disabilities are often not prepared for the academic requirements and fast-paced lecture of a college classroom. When education majors with learning disabilities are admitted into a teacher-education program, they are eligible to receive services as long as the modifications do not invalidate the rigor of the program of study (Ferri, Gallagher, & Connor, 2011). Once students with learning disabilities go to college, they often find themselves facing new learning contexts with heightened feelings of anxiety and expectations for success. Research into the intersectionality of teacher candidates who have learning disabilities is limited, but due to increases in formal identification of students with learning disabilities and in special needs services at all academic levels (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016), it is timely and foundational for classroom teachers and instructors in the academy.

In his 2006 research rebuttal to Boote and Beile’s (2005) article claiming that the literature review was “as a key component of a research project” (p.12), Maxwell argued instead, “a literature review is an essential tool, and any researcher must learn to use it competently and appropriately” (p.30). Therefore, an exhaustive listing of any and all research even peripherally pertaining to the topic of study should not be the goal for foundational research. Instead, the focus should be on striving to incorporate a detailed, “thick” (Creswell, 2007) review of the most important, relevant topical literature in order to anchor a research study. Using Maxwell’s (2006) ideas of the literature review as a “conceptual framework” in which the “goal is an integrated set of theoretical concepts and empirical findings” (p.30), this paper focuses on fluid examinations of relevant and applicable research that explores struggling college-age students, and more specifically, undergraduate education majors who have had academic struggles due to learning disabilities and/or high incidence disabilities (such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder [ADHD]) and the ways in which they have worked through their struggles with the goal of realizing academic success.

Keywords:

Learning Disabilities, Academic Struggles, Teacher Candidates, Pre-Service Teachers, Teacher Preparation.