| This ethnographic study examined ways in which adults discovered that they have a learning disability, the varied routes to formal assessments, and the impacts that formal learning disability diagnoses had on their personal lives, careers, and educational decisions. Analysis of data illustrated that these adults benefited from knowing about their learning no matter how late in the life cycle the discovery came. Adults were motivated to discover the nature of their learning difficulties to meet personal, career, and family goals, to solve problems, and to improve the quality of their lives through self-directed learning. Personnel in college learning disabilities departments, adult educator classes, counseling practices, and vocational rehabilitation centers were instrumental in advising adults in this study to seek learning disability assessments. In addition, finding out their children had learning disabilities or reading about learning disabilities gave participants impetus to seek learning disabilities diagnoses. The study revealed; that the younger the participant were, the more likely they were to ask for and expect educational accommodations. Older participants were less likely to ask for accommodations because (1) they did not want to seen as someone who takes advantage of the system, or (2) they felt that they had learned to compensate on their own and they did not need accommodations. Participants sought careers in which their learning disabilities would not be perceived as detrimental to the job or found positions in which job requirements corresponded to their own strengths. All participants revealed their learning disabilities diagnoses to their families. Before the diagnoses, family members, teachers, and significant others tended to label the individuals as 'lazy,' which complicated the problem as well as angered and discouraged the adults with learning disabilities. Many of the participants learned to accommodate for their learning difficulties or to hide them cleverly, but often at great expense. As a consequence, when participants finally received their learning disabilities diagnoses, the initial reactions varied from anger at what they experienced unnecessarily to relief that they no had a name for their problems and that they were not stupid or lazy after all. |