Revising Law on Learning Disability

Your Sept. 15 editorial indicates a lack of understanding of the issues of learning disabilities, which underscores why there needs to be careful legislation to protect students. Those with learning disabilities are not looking for special privileges--only for a level playing field. Being unable to read and/or swiftly record answers on a standardized test has nothing to do with intelligence or comprehension--only with the technical decoding of written material.

Before passing judgment on who should be allowed to learn what, I suggest you research people like Albert Einstein (who failed third-grade math), Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison and Woodrow Wilson, to name just a few of the geniuses who didn’t learn like everyone else. We all lose by putting additional obstacles in the way of those whose creativity is beyond our own comprehension.

ALITTA KULLMAN

Aliso Viejo

* You question whether a law student should be given twice the time and the services of a personal assistant to take the bar exam, since the practice of law requires the ability to read and comprehend. In fact, language-learning disabled individuals are usually quite capable of reading and comprehending material. However, especially when under pressure, they do require additional time in which to complete the process.

Since there is an extremely high incidence of people with language-learning disabilities in our population, many of whom are gifted, we would do ourselves a grave disservice to exclude this group of individuals from the benefits of higher education and the opportunity to contribute to the well-being of us all.

BARBARA SAMUELS

Canoga Park