Teaching Individuals with Learning Disabilities to Drive

ByRon Zuverink
learning disabilities

Each student with a learning disability is unique, and it is important to understand their needs on an individualized personal level. Specifically, we must look at their strengths and weaknesses. It’s important that strengths are always presented first. In many ways, they have probably heard only about the weaknesses. This is our first opportunity to encourage our new student in a positive way. This step being taken correctly in the first lesson will generally elevate the student’s confidence and self-esteem. In all cases I start out by telling my student that as I work with them, they will not be labeled. I tell them I plan to take all their strengths and weaknesses and put them all in a box, and then we will end up with a good driver. This in itself almost always puts a huge smile on their face. This to me is the first step to success.

Traditional teaching methods may not be effective for individuals with challenges. They may struggle with the day-to-day stuff that the world often assumes most students can do. This is not the case most of the time. It’s my experience that we must come up with very creative ways of teaching the student tasks. I always start by teaching routine and repetition which requires teaching with extreme levels of patience.

Individuals with learning disabilities may require extra time to understand driving concepts and skills. It is necessary to be patient, provide practice opportunities, and reinforce learning through repetition including breaking down tasks into smaller lessons. By teaching this way I can help to build their confidence.

Efficient communication is the first step to reaching individuals with learning disabilities. I believe in using clear and simple language, providing specific analogies through real life like stories, feedback, encouraging questions and making sure that they know there are no bad questions.

Remember, teaching individuals with learning disabilities to drive requires a personalized approach. It requires going to every possible way of connecting with the student and in many cases becoming a close friend to them, giving them someone with whom they can share their joys and excitement. Most importantly their excitement of learning how to drive.

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