Chicken or the Egg

The age-old question of "which came first, the chicken or the egg" can easily be asked in the education world.  Here is the Chicken and Egg in the education world, "which came first, a learning disability that causes behavior or a behavior that causes learning difficulty?"

I have taught some awesome students in my school, and the behaviors usually come from a complex concept that they scream "I can't do this!" or "I don't understand this!"  It has led me to wonder why learning disabilities and emotional/behavioral disorders cannot both be diagnosed in a student.  Did you know that?  A person can not be labeled with both an SLD and an EBD according to the federal law, they are mutually exclusive.

Apparently, not understanding something that everyone around you understands doesn't cause any behaviors or emotional problems.  If you don't understand why 1+1=2, I think that is going to cause some possible behaviors or emotional problems such as self-esteem and depression problems.  When I struggled with math through all of my education, I really did want to take the chair or table that I was working at and throw it across the room.  Here is the difference, though, I never did that, I wanted to, but I didn't.  This brings up the question: "Well, why do some students throw chairs or flip desks while others don't?"  The answer to that is personality, it depends on if the person's personality is impulsive or not.  If a person is impulsive, they are more likely to throw the chair and tip the desk because they are frustated.

So which came first, learning disorder or behavior problems?  Another rhetorical question to which I do not have a perfect answer, just an opinion.  Both happened first, the learning disability affects the behavior, the behavior affects the learning.  Or, the behavior affects the learning and then the learning disability affects the behavior.  They work with each other to create behavior problems.