ABSTRACT
Scholars and educational practitioners interested in helping children with language and learning disabilities (L/LD) have understandably focused their primary energies on identifying learning challenges and opportunities for these children in school settings. However, the premise of this chapter is that a richer appreciation of these issues can be obtained by a simultaneous focus on the family. Children with L/LD are often first identified as such in the formal educational setting, and intervention programs are centered on that setting. However, as the literature on multicultural issues in special education has made abundantly clear, family dynamics constitute an essential backdrop against which to view educational issues (Harry & Kalyanpur, 1994). In addition, the developmental psychology literature highlights the role of routine parent—child interactions in the child's development of strategic behaviors such as planning, remembering, and categorizing (Rogoff, 1990) and in the development of coping behaviors such as delay of gratification and attributions for success and failure (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). These dynamics are no less important in the case of children with L/LD, regardless of their cultural or economic background or their specific disability. Indeed, a strong case can be made that parental understanding and support for children with atypical developmental patterns is a particularly important prerequisite for the child's successful adaptation to challenge.
