Carlos Alonso Blog Post #2

    First of all, I would like to start this second blog by thanking my colleagues for the hard work we put into our presentation as well as our agenda and our study guide. Our topic was about specific learning disabilities, the first topic in our presentation was about dyslexia, a disease known to be highly known and unfortunately common in many parts of the world. As a definition of dyslexia, we could say that dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory, and verbal processing speed. Although I could not be present on the day of our presentation due to an unexpected family problem, I was able to watch the recording of the class to appreciate the good job my group did when presenting on our topic. 

    As a second topic, my group presented what dysgraphia is, this disease affects people when it comes to being able to write, they write slowly, they have problems with their thoughts and they very commonly make mistakes when saying a word or at the time. of reading a text with many words. As a third topic, my group presented what is visual perceptual. This problem can affect when trying to understand certain images or certain objects. This disease causes the brain of those affected to become confused and unable to finally decipher what is happening or what it really is. The next topic of our presentation was about language processing, this problem is when speaking or formulating complex words. It is usually due to neurological problems as well as a trauma at a young age or a strong blow to the head which causes this problem of not being able to formulate words and having confusion when trying to express something to other people. 

    The following topic is a very well-known topic and could be one of the three most common problems in our society today. We are talking about visual disability, when talking about this disease we are talking about any visual problem, it does not matter if we are talking about partial damage or complete damage to vision. The next presentation topic for my group was my part, which I really enjoyed researching and learning about this disease of which I did not have much knowledge before making this presentation. I was very sad that I could not have done the presentation and explanation myself, but my team did a great job of supporting me by doing it for me during my absence. My topic was dyscalculia, this problem is mostly about mathematics. Many people suffer from this disease but the vast majority of people who are affected by this disease are children, of course, there are also a large number of adults who have this disease. As I mentioned before, dyscalculia is mostly about problems with mathematics and these signs. It also affects any activity that involves numbers. Many of the people who are affected by this disease feel frustrated, they usually suffer from anxiety since they feel limited by not being able to carry out activities that contain mathematical operations and even any activity or exercise that involves any number. For this disease there is no type of cure, but we can find a couple of associations that help people to overcome this problem a little and thus be able to feel a little better about themselves.

     And that was how I concluded our presentation by closing with my topic. The conclusion we reached with my group was the following: Specific Learning Disabilities are lifelong conditions that require understanding and support from educators, parents and society. With the right strategies and accommodations, individuals with SLDs can thrive academically and personally. 

    Now I will talk about the presentations of my classmates, I will begin by talking about group 3 whose topic to present was anxiety. As my colleague Zainab emphasized, anxiety can be a mental disorder of which 3 problems can stand out: fear, pain, and stress. Zainab also emphasized why we have to know and be aware of this problem of anxiety since many of us have experienced this mental problem at least once in our lives. Regarding group 2 I can highlight several aspects of their topic to present, which was autism. Autism, as explained by Group 2, is a mental problem that mainly affects being able to interact with other people. Likewise, we have several types of autism since it affects people who suffer from this mental illness differently. 

    To conclude with my blog I can say that I learned a lot about these mental and physical problems which are the most common in our society today. I learned about the other groups and paid close attention to their presentations since these problems are very present in our society and we do not take the time to understand these problems and understand how they work. I liked being able to share with my group mates on this topic since we all learned and we were also able to open our knowledge about these problems present in our society.