Sunday, 18 February 2024

LEARNING DISABILITIES

• Learning disability refers to a heterogenous group of disorders manifested in

terms of di culty in the acquisition of learning , reading ,writing ,speaking ,
reasoning and mathematical activities.

• Sources are inherent but, are presumed to originate from problems with the
functioning of the CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM (CNS).

• A ects self-esteem, vocations, social-relations and daily life activities.

SYMPTOMS OF LEARNING DISABILITIES

• Disabilities in writing letters, words and phrases, reading out text and speaking
appear frequently. Listening problems are common although they might not have
auditory problems.

• Attentional disability/ de ciency leads to hyperactivity; they get easily distracted

cannot sustain on one point for a long duration.

• Poor space orientation and inadequate sense of time . They lack sense of time
and often fail to complete their tasks on the allocated time period.They also show
confusion of directions and misjudge between left and right and, up and down.

• Possession of poor motor coordination and manual dexterity. Eg: Lack of bodily
balance, inability to ride bicycles and, handle doorknobs.

• Failure to understand and follow oral instructions.

• Failure to understand and interpret body language.
• Combination of perceptual disorders - visual, auditory, tactual and kinesthetical
misperception .

• Diagnosis of dyslexia - failure to organise verbal materials.

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 CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
• First investigated by Ivan .P. Pavlov.

• Primarily, Pavlov was interested in the physiology of digestion ; his discovery of

Classical Conditioning was entirely accidental.

METHOD(S) OF EXPERIMENTATION

• First Phase

In the rst phase, a dog was kept in a box and , was harnessed. The dog
was kept hungry. When food was placed in-front of the dog, it salivated. Here, the
food is the Unconditioned Stimulus(US) and, salivation is the Unconditioned
Response (UR).

• Second Phase

In the second phase, the dog was also kept in a box and, harnessed. The
dog was also kept hungry. Before serving food to the dog, a bell was rung.The dog
gradually learnt to associate the bell with food. Later, when the bell was rung, the
dog salivated even when no food was served . Here, the bell is the Conditioned
Stimulus (CS) and, salivation is the Conditioned Response (CR).

DETERMINANTS OF CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

• Time relation between stimuli

Based on the time relation between the onset of CS and US ,the following
procedures arise

A. When the CS and US are presented together, it is known as simultaneous

conditioning.

B. In delayed conditioning ,the onset of CS precedes the onset of US. The CS

ends before the end of the US.

C. In trace conditioning, the onset and end of the CS precedes the onset of the US
with some time gap between the two.

D. In backward conditioning ,the US precedes the onset of CS.

The rst three are the forward conditioning procedures while the fourth is the
backward conditioning procedure.

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 • Types of Unconditioned stimulus
- Appetitive unconditioned stimuli , automatically elicits approach responses such
as eating, drinking, caressing , etc. These responses give satisfaction and
pleasure.
- Aversive unconditioned stimuli such as noise, bitter taste, electric shock, painful
injections, etc are painful , harmful and elicits avoidance and escape responses.

It has been found that appetitive classical conditioning is slower and requires
greater number of acquisition trials; but, aversive classical conditioning is
established in one, two, or three trials depending upon the intensity of the aversive
US.

• Intensity of Conditioned stimuli

More intense CS are more e ective in accelerating the acquisition of CRs . It means
that the more intense the CS, the fewer will be the number of acquisition trials
needed for conditioning to occur. This in uences the course of both aversive and
appetitive classical conditioning.

OPERANT/ INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING

• First investigated by B.F.Skinner.

• Skinner wanted to study the occurrence of voluntary responses when an organism

interacts on the environment.(operants)

• Operants are those behaviours or responses, which are emitted by animals and
human beings voluntarily and, are under their control.

METHOD(S) OF EXPERIMENTATION

In Skinner’s experiment, a hungry rat was placed inside the Skinner box. The box
was built to enable movements. Inside the chamber was a lever, connected to a
food container.While moving around and pawing the walls, the rat accidentally
presses the lever ands food pellet drops onto the plate. The rat gradually learnt to

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 associate the lever with food. In the preceding trials, the rat takes lesser time to
press the lever .Finally, the rat pressed the lever as soon as it was placed inside the
box. Thus, conditioning was completed. Here, lever pressing is an operant response
and getting food is, its consequence.

DETERMINANTS OF OPERANT CONDITIONING

• Types of Reinforcement
- Positive Reinforcement involves stimuli that have pleasant consequences . They
strengthen and maintain the responses that have caused them to occur. Positive
reinforcers satisfy needs - food, water, medals, praise, money,
status ,information, etc.
- Negative reinforcers involve unpleasant and painful stimuli. Responses that lead
organisms to get rid of painful stimuli or avoid or escape from them provide
negative reinforcement. Thus, negative reinforcement leads to learning of
avoidance and escape responses. For instance, one learns to put on woollen
clothes , burn rewood or use electric heaters to avoid the unpleasant cold
weather.

• Number of Reinforcement and other features

The course of operant conditioning is accelerated to an extent as, the number,

amount and quality of reinforcement increases.

• Schedules of Reinforcement
- A reinforcement schedule is the arrangement of the delivery of reinforcement
during conditioning trials. It in uences the course of conditioning in its own way.
- When a desired response is reinforced every time it occurs, we call it continuous
reinforcement .
- In partial reinforcement, responses are reinforced sometimes and, sometimes
not.It has been found to produce greater resistance to extinction as compared to
continuous reinforcement.

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 • Delayed Reinforcement
The e ectiveness of reinforcement is dramatically altered by delay in the occurrence
of reinforcement. It is found that, delay in the delivery of reinforcement leads to
poorer level of performance.

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 OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING

Other names include imitation, social learning and modelling.

• BANDURA’S EXPERIMENT

The participants were divided into 3 groups.

A short lm of about 5 minutes was shown to all groups. The lm showcases a boy
(model) interacting with a bobo doll.

The rst group were shown a version where the boy was being rewarded and
praised for beating up the bobo doll.

The second group were shown a version where the boy was being punished and
scolded for his aggressive nature towards the bobo doll.

The third group did not see whether the boy was being rewarded or punished.

After some time , members of the three groups were allowed to play with toys. Their
behaviour towards the toys deeply showcases their observational learning.

The group which saw the rst version depicted aggressive behaviour towards the
doll while, the group which saw the second version depicted the least form of
aggressive behaviour.

Thus, learning takes place through observation.

• Aggressiveness, pro-social behaviour , courtesy, politeness, diligence and

indolence are acquired through observational learning.

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 COGNITIVE LEARNING

• Focuses on processes that occur during learning rather than concentrating solely
on S-R and S-S connections.

• There is a change in what the learner knows rather than what he/she does

• KOHLER’S EXPERIMENT (INSIGHT LEARNING)

Kohler performed a series of experiments with chimpanzees that involved solving

complex problems. The chimpanzees were kept in an enclosed play area where
food was kept out of their reach. The chimpanzees learnt to utilise the objects
around them. Here, learning does not occur as a result of trial and error or,
reinforcement; learning occurred instantly through insight .The chimpanzees would
move about the enclosure and would then stand on boxes and use a pole to obtain
food which before, was not within their reach.

The chimpanzees depicted what Kohler called insight learning - the process by
which the solution to a problem suddenly becomes clear.
- What is learnt in insight learning is not a speci c set of conditioned associations
between stimuli and responses but, a cognitive relationship between a means
and an end.

• TOLMAN’S EXPERIMENT ( LATENT LEARNING)

- In latent learning, a new behaviour is learned but not demonstrated until
reinforcement is provided for displaying it.
- Tolman put two groups of rat in a maze and gave them an opportunity to explore.
In one group, rats found food at the end of the maze and soon learned to make
their way rapidly through the maze.

On the other hand, rats in the second group were not rewarded and showed no
apparent signs of learning.

But later, when these rats were reinforced, they ran through the maze as
e ciently as the rewarded group.
- Tolman contended that the unrewarded rats had learned the layout of the map
early in their explorations. They just never displayed their latent learning until the
reinforcement was provided.
- The rats developed a cognitive map of the maze

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 - Cognitive map - a mental representation of the spatial locations and directions
which they needed to reach their goal.

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 FEATURES OF LEARNING
• Learning always involves some kinds of experience
- When we experience an event occurring in a certain sequence on a number of
occasions, we learn that when an event occurs, it may be followed by certain
other events.

Eg: One learns that if the bell rings in a hostel after sunset, then dinner is to be
served.
- Repeated experience of satisfaction after doing something in a speci c manner
leads to the formation of habit.
- Sometimes, a single experience can also lead to learning.
Eg: A child touching a hot pot

• Behavioural changes that occur due to learning are relatively permanent

Behavioural changes that are neither permanent nor learned includes:

- Fatigue
Suppose you are reading a textbook. A time will come when you feel bored and
tired. Gradually, you will stop reading at some point. This change in behaviour is
neither permanent nor learnt but, rather due to fatigue.

- Habituation
Suppose there is a wedding in the vicinity of your residence.In the beginning the
noise disturbs you and distracts you from what you are doing. As the noise
continues, you develop some orienting re exes. These re exes become weaker and
weaker and, eventually becomes undetectable. This behavioural change is due to
exposure to stimuli.

- Drugs, sedatives and alcohol

When a person is on drugs/sedatives/alcohol, his/her behaviour changes and, also
a ects the physiological functioning. This change is temporary and disappears once
its e ect wears out

• Learning involves a sequence of psychological events

I. Do a pretest to know how much the person knows before proceeding onto the
actual test.

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 II. Present the list of words to be remember within a certain period of time

III. During this time, the allowed task is processed towards acquiring new
knowledge.

IV. After processing is completed, new knowledge is acquired. ( LEARNING)

V. After some time elapses, the processed information is recalled by the person.

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