Accept a diagnoses for a foreign language learning disability to address my poor Spanish grades?

I have to opportunity to get a foreign language learning disability diagnosis. I am a straight A student, except for Spanish which I have a B- average in through junior year. Basically people with a foreign language learning are people who are proficient in all other aspects of learning except for foreign languages. Spanish really screwed up my gpa, and I will by applying to some of the top California schools. Now should I undergo getting diagnosed for this, or will colleges look down on me if I am diagnosed with a learning disability like this one?

Given that language learning is a natural function of the human brain, and that you seem to have mastered English pretty well, I would expect that any learning disability that you may have that manifests itself in a foreign language class will also manifest itself elsewhere in your life sooner or later. So do go through the evaluation. If a disability is identified, you will be able to access services that you qualify for, and you will be able to get help mastering the compensation skills that you will need when this issue affects other aspects of your life.

Having something be hard for you doesn’t make it a disability.

You want to get diagnosed with a learning disability because you got a B-? Is this even a thing?

I thought I’d heard it all.

@fragbot and @saintf not because I have a B- but because my test and quiz average for all the years I’ve taken spanish has been under 65% and I feel like it would be beneficial to get help for my Spanish. I heard getting diagnosed allows you to receive extra time and free tutoring. I make up for my bad test average by just working hard to do well on things that aren’t test and quizzes. You have to admit a failing test average for all the years I’ve taking Spanish is at least a little alarming consider I put a fair amount of work into the class.

Is your goal to be proficient in Spanish, or just to get into the colleges?

You’re speaking about “opportunities” and what’s “beneficial.”

A diagnosis is a not meant to be a back door to a higher gpa.

Are you implying that every bright kid who has ever worked hard in my class, and attained only a B- average, has a math learning disability?? And that every bright kid in my school of 2500 who has ever worked hard in any subject and attained only a B- average in that subject has a disability in that subject? And that every bright kid in the nation who works hard at anything and attains only a B- in that subject has a learning disability in that subject?

Some kids simply aren’t good at some things. That’s the reality. And it’s always a struggle for A students to realize that there’s a subject in which they have to struggle a bit. A students tend to be very used to being good at everything. They’ve spent their lives hearing how smart they are. When they do come up against a subject that doesn’t come easily, they tend to look for someone or something to blame.

To be honest, as an educator, I have no idea how a learning disability could manifest itself in a foreign language, but not your native tongue. So I did a quick google search, and these are the types of results I came up with:

"Research indicates that LD students and at-risk students both have FL learning difficulties,due to deficiencies in their native languages. "
and
’ "Parents and advocates for students classified as having learning disabilities (LD) often automatically assume that the students will have difficulty learning a foreign language, Sparks says. He and his colleagues conducted several studies that hypothesized a connection between LDs and difficulties in foreign-language learning but could not find evidence to support it, he says.

“Because of the increasingly common usage of the term FLLD (e.g., FL disability, disability for FL learning), I thought that it was time to clarify for the record the position that a disability for learning an FL has not been supported by the research literature,” writes Sparks ’

So my admittedly very quick google search seems to support the idea that there IS a language disability— but your English grades seem to be right there with your other A grades. But that the evidence doesn’t seem to support the idea of a Foreign Language (“FL”) disability, separate from other learning disabilities.

I’m wondering how you can get a B- if you get under 65% on all your tests and quizzes.

Look, everyone have their strengths and weaknesses but not all weaknesses are signs of a learning disability. This quest for straight A’s has definitely gone awry.

There is the possibility that your Spanish grades are your “canary in the mineshaft”. For that reason, I would recommend getting an evaluation for LD. Yes, there are many students whose LDs go undiagnosed for years simply because they can pull down good grades in most subject areas. You may well have developed compensation skills that work for other subject areas, but not for Spanish for some reason.

I’d also suggest that you sit down with your Spanish teacher, and carefully review any patterns of error in those quizzes and tests. Surely there are some. Other things to consider include any differences in test/quiz format between the Spanish class and other classes. Is the font the same? Is the paper the quiz/test printed on a different color or brightness? Is the font size the same? If the quiz is a “pop quiz” on the white board at the front of the room, what color(s) of marker does the instructor use? Is there glare on that board that is unique to the Spanish classroom? Is there a noise in the Spanish room that is not in the other classrooms? All of those things can make a difference for some students.

Have you ever tried learning Spanish outside the classroom? Watched Spanish language shows, practised with native speakers, read Spanish comics/ graphic novels?

It’s quite a jump, @bjkmom, from OP saying he has trouble with a certain subject and suspects he may have a disability to saying he believes EVERY kid who struggles has one.

People can have different learning issues and they can be present in differing degrees of severity. I have a child who has dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. Foreign languages are difficult for her due to working memory issues, word retrieval, rapid automatic naming, and other typical dyslexic traits. OP may have an issue that isn’t severe enough to have affected other areas. I think it’s best not to ignore signs that could indicate an issue.

One if the signs, incidentally, is being told that you’re “just not good” at whatever it is you’re trying very hard to be good at, or that you’re lazy or simply not trying hard enough. Please get the evaluation. Any schools that would hold such a diagnosis against you won’t be capable of meeting your needs, so you’ll be better off not attending them anyway.

What he said was that he had an “opportunity” to “get a diagnosis.” Not that he was concerned about his lack of progress, but that Spanish “screwed up (his) gpa” and he was applying to competitive schools. And that “getting diagnosed allows you to receive extra time and free tutoring.”

That’s a million miles from my daughter needing extra support for her auditory processing issues, or from someone with dyslexia getting support. Your example of your daughter backs up the first of the quotes I cited.

But you’re right, it was a leap and for that I apologize. But I still stand by the tiny bit of research I did before responding, that casts doubt on the possibility of FLLD.

Getting tested to help someone who needs it is the right idea. “Getting a diagnosis” to get extra time, free tutoring, and a gpa boost sounds like someone trying to play the system. And, if the way I’m reading it is the way it’s intended, it takes time away from my daughter and your child and every other kid who has a legitimate need for those services.

If it was a matter of the OP simply phrasing his situation in a way that mis-represented his intentions, then once again I apologize for taking his words at face value.

This has all been very helpful. First off the reason I suspect I may have a learning disability is because most of my family has had severe dyslexia, including my dad and my sister. In addition tests are 45% of my grade in Spanish class so if I get around a 60% in that, and then I get near !00% in all the other subject areas I can still get a B-. Now I think I’m going to go to the disabilities counselor at my school, but I’m not sure now what I should tell her and what I should be asking her. Should I be asking her for a foreign language learning disability diagnosis or a whole other diagnosis? I will admit that in English class especially I have a lot of trouble with grammar rules and vocab quizzes, but I’ve been able to get past them since these are things I practice almost daily when I’m writing papers/reading something etc. Also about getting outside help and meeting with my spanish teacher, me and my spanish teacher meet weekly and their she tutors me. I don’t know how well it’s working but I’ve stuck to it.

You can’t just walk in and ask for a “diagnosis” because a subject is harder than normal for you Many people who have no disabilities find foreign language and grammar difficult and I’d imagine (although I could be wrong) that if you were dyslexic that a red flag would have shown up in your reading skills years ago. If you truly feel that you have a learning disability you should be able to arrange through your school to have a full battery of tests done and see if anything turns up. If you want to go through the process I’d start by talking to your guidance counselor or the disabilities counselor at your school.

You are going to tell the counselor that most of your family has severe dyslexia, and that your struggles with Spanish have made you think that you may have an LD in that range as well. Don’t say that you think you have a specific issue that only is with Spanish. Just tell them that your consistent struggles in that class, and similar difficulties (but less severe) in English, have made you decide it is time to get a formal evaluation. And if you are in a public school, they have to set it up, because you are old enough to ask for it on your own.

When I was in elementary school the suspected I had dyslexia, and I was part of “the special kids group” but I was a really fast reader because I read almost all the time so I quickly got put out of it. I think the reason I’ve been able to do so well in English is because as a kid I read almost 24/7, and would read things way above my reading level just to challenge myself. But thanks so much for all the help, I talked to my guidance counselor who was the head of special education at my school for a while and she says based on how long she’s known me, and after going over all the reports on me she believes something definitely could be there. So tomorrow I’m going to go talk to the learning disability head tomorrow.

Excellent!

Good luck with everything!

For what it’s worth, when my daughter was first struggling as a preschooler, she went for testing.

The testing was exhaustive-- a full special ed workup. I had to answer questions about my pregnancy, about her early development, the whole drill.

They don’t test for one specific disability. They get a look at the whole picture, and see what’s there. That’s how they were able to discover her auditory processing issues: not because it’s what I asked for (I had never heard of it) but because it’s what the testing indicated.

By all means, give your guidance counselor all the information she needs to get the full picture.

So I went to the special education counselor and she said that my grades in Spanish were .1 to high to qualify for free professional tutoring, but I will get extra time on tests now and also she says she is going to give me a number of tests to help me figure out what type of learner I am and where my weaknesses lie (which will help me address them). She agrees that there is definitely something there, it’s just not that severe. Thank you all for all the help, and I can truly say I am happy with how things turned out. It would be really nice to know how I can help myself become a better foreign language learner and a better student.