by Karen Fried, co-director of The K&M Center

Getty Images

I heard this recently from parents of a child who had recently been evaluated for her learning difficulties. They were told to expect little in terms of future career options for their daughter based upon the weaknesses reflected in her testing. My thought was, “How dare someone be so limiting about the future of an 8 year old child!”

What I shared with the parents is our experience: that students’ testing results are helpful to devise a plan to improve their ability to learn.  However, it is my feeling that using testing data about a student to exclude them from potential careers is a misuse of the information.

These parents came away from the assessment process feeling demoralized about the future prospects for their child – before they even started working on the issue.

There is a long list of successful adults who had learning difficulties as children in every field, including, medicine, science, art, engineering, law, athletics, and entertainment. Great Schools.com has even published such a list – Famous People with Learning Difficulties.

It is our mission at The K&M Center to add our students to the growing number of successful adults pursuing careers of their choosing.  If you are feeling overwhelmed, we can help.  We welcome you to visit our website where you can read K&M Success Stories as well as learn more about how, every day, we help children increase their ability to learn and reach their potential.