ABSTRACT
It was around 1970 that the concept of learning disabilities (LD) became established in the Netherlands. To a large extent influenced by the work of William Cruickshank and his pupils, there rapidly arose high expectations for the new psychoneurological orientation toward learning and behavioral problems in the classroom. These expectations were reinforced by the trust that was growing at the time in the potential of the task-analysis paradigm. In the 30 years since then, the concept has undergone major developments. This is to a large extent related to the local context. The concept of LD as such has never been included in legislation. Rather, since 1949, special schools have existed for children with learning and behavioral problems, problems that were not related to mental retardation or sensorimotor disorders. Hence, the interest in the Netherlands for the LD concept was more for the implication it had for diagnostics and treatment than for the potential offered for the social and educational emancipation of an as yet “undiscovered” group of pupils with problems in school. A differentiated system of provisions already existed for the pupils who could not satisfy the expectations of general education. However, the expectation that development of the LD concept based on scientific research would lead to differential diagnostics and treatment for the group or part of the group concerned was never fully realized. This has contributed to the gradual inclusion of the LD concept in the Netherlands into the more general concept of “learning and behavioral problems”, and to the growing preference to refer to aspects of it with terms such as dyslexia and ADHD. Such developments are, of course, related to the success of interest groups and other social forces but also to the problem priorities as formulated by schools. For instance, the term dyslexia has in the Netherlands become of topical interest through the influence of the network of parents and professionals operating under the same name. The current popularity of the diagnosis of ADHD seems for a great part attributable to the tension that schools experience between the willingness and competency of pupils to adapt and the behavioral standards that schools demand of them. These developments reflect a shift from focusing on the characteristics of a group, that can be identified according to the discrepancy criterion and described as such in more detail, to focusing on disturbances in the learning process. With this shift, the LD concept, both with respect to research and in educational practice, came to be seen in a more general context in the Netherlands.
