A social construction: Yul Whitney and the social causes of learning disability

School psychologist Yul Whitney focuses on students and children who have learning differences. Although many experts like him agree that such cognitive condition is primarily biological in nature, many researchers have concluded that it can also be just a social construction. That is, the social or structural causes of disability or the label of such individual deficit are fundamentally socially constructed.

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Originally founded on a medical model, learning disability finds a different explanation in a socio-cultural viewpoint. Especially in the US and other developed countries where education gears toward a capitalistic society, people with cognitive difficulties often find themselves inferior of the other citizens who have well-developed scientific and economic acumen. However, some researchers believe that people with poor academic performance do not necessarily have delayed learning abilities.

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Psychologists and researchers, like Yul Whitney, review history and often find agrarian cultures not even considering mental efficiency as a gauge of adult adequacy. This means that capitalistic societies and rural communities have separate views of the mental capacity of a person. While city dwellers place high value on mental speed, literacy, and numeracy, agricultural populations tend to focus more on the human “physical intelligence” as a measure of productivity.

The idea of learning disability draws differing opinions about its origin, causes, implications, and nature. Nonetheless, with all the acceptable explanations, people with such condition can seek help and learn how to cope with the difficulties associated with having learning disabilities.

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More information about Yul Whitney and insights on people’s learning differences can be read on this Twitter page.