... a specialist that can get to the bottom of quirky, subtle, or unusual LD/disability issues-- therefore leveling the playing field for those students who have documented and approved accommodations. Most of those students will NOT be those below the median income. Odds are reasonably good, in fact, that low-income students have had little meaningful intervention aimed at mitigation or management either if their parents lack the awareness or resources to argue for it, so they may be at an even greater disadvantage than those of higher SES.
Yes, as society becomes more aware of prevalence of LDs, I believe the lack of timely identification, remediation, instructional difference (IEP), and academic accommodations (504) may explain the pipeline-to-prison, which has been a topic of other threads.
Absent an LD diagnosis, behavior issues are regarded as willful disobedience rather than as a brain difference, and the students are believed to benefit from discipline rather than from supportive instruction on how to compensate for these differences.
