Foreign Language Learning Disabilities

Abstract

Many students who repeatedly fail foreign language requirements, in spite of intensive tutoring, high academic potential, and motivation, are being referred to programs for learning disabled university students. Guidelines for diagnosing a disability in learning a foreign language, however, are not available. This research presents a method for identifying predictors of success in learning a foreign language at the university level and compares the performance of students identified as learning disabled on these predictors. The scores of regular students enrolled in introductory foreign language classes on the Modern Language Aptitude Test were compared with their foreign language course performance. The fourth and fifth subtests predicted a relationship to learning a foreign language. In addition, university learning disabled students exhibited significantly lower performance on all five of the Modern Language Aptitude subtests. The results of this study suggest that the information provided by the Modern Language Aptitude Test (especially the fourth and fifth subtests) is potentially valuable to the diagnostic process.