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Learning Disabilities and Low Income Populations
Failure to succeed in school and poor social skills can result in long-term problems for individuals with learning disabilities. Chronic unemployment or underemployment is all too common. To understand and to effectively manage job training or financial assistance programs, it is wise to keep the need for adult literacy programming and social skills training in mind.
Here are a few facts about the relationship between learning disabilities and low income populations:
- 62% of students with learning disabilities were unemployed one year after graduation.
- 35% of students identified with learning disabilities drop out of high school – twice the rate of their non-LD peers.
- The U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice found that “LD youth were twice as likely to be judged delinquent by the courts than non-LD youth” as a result of inability to repeat their stories correctly, inability to follow sequences, inability to answer demand questions or to be declared oppositional.
- 65.4% of households in which family members report having specific learning disabilities have an annual income of less than $25,000 as compared with 38.8% of the general population.
- Difficulty with reading comprehension and following a systematic birth control plan are among the top reasons teenage girls identified for NOT using birth control aids
- 50% of females with learning disabilities will be mothers (many of them single) within one year of leaving school.
- Within Washington state’s 1997 welfare caseload, 54% had learning disabilities; 35% were classified as “slow learners;” 14% had mental retardation and 5% have other learning needs.
- Substance addictions and learning disabilities are the most common impediments to keeping welfare clients from attaining and maintaining employment.
- 60% of adults with severe literacy problems have previously undetected or untreated learning disabilities.
August 2000
Learning Disabilities Association of America
4156 Library Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15234-1349
Phone (412) 341-1515 Fax (412) 344-0224
www.LDAAmerica.org
© 2004 LDA of America