Glossary L

Glossary L

Learnability approach is the question of whether language, or some aspect of language, could, in fact, be learned by children. If language is not learnable, then it must be innate. The Learnability approach to the study of language acquisition focuses on explaining how language could be learned, in contrast to the developmental approach, which focuses on explaining the course of language development. Please see also Developmental approach.

Learned helplessness refers to a tendency to be a passive learner who depends on others for decisions and guidance.

Learned motives are motives based on learned needs, drives, and goals.

Learned optimism refers to Seligmann's description of a particularly effective explanatory style

Learned-helplessness orientation refers to a tendency to give up or to stop trying after failing because these failures have been attributed to a lack of ability that one can do little about. Please see also Learned helplessness orientation.

Learner-directed curriculum is one in which the learning activities emerge from individual interests and teacher guidance.

Learning refers to an enduring change in the mechanisms of behavior involving specific stimuli and/or responses that results from prior experience with similar stimuli and responses. Learning also refers to any relatively permanent change in behavior or behavioral potential that can be attributed to experience and practice or that results from one's experiences or practice.

Learning difficulty refers to a term covering people who experience more problems than the general population with activities that involve thinking and understanding. Moreover, Learning difficulty is a term that refers to disorders that affect the ability to interpret what one sees and hears or the ability to link information from different parts of the brain, thus disrupting the processes involved in understanding or using language, spoken or written.