Learning Disabilities Programs

The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation has been making grants to support children with learning disabilities (LD) and their families since 1992.  Over the course of the Foundation’s fifteen years experience with this particular field, early intervention has emerged as an effective critical strategy to ensure academic success for children with learning difficulties, including but not limited to formally diagnosed disabilities.  Left unaddressed, learning disabilities can affect the emotional and physical health and well being of children, in turn preventing a positive experience in the classroom.

During the first decade of the Foundation’s involvement in the field of learning disabilities, support was directed towards public relations campaigns to dispel the stigma often associated with LD.  In 2003, the Foundation refocused its efforts on the classroom.  The Foundation identified two key areas where grants can help prepare classrooms to be designed for all types of learners.  The Foundation’s current priorities guiding its grant making are two-fold: Early Intervention: Recognition and Response and Technology and Teaching.

The Recognition and Response program is a collaborative effort among a network of organizations with experience in the fields of learning disabilities and early childhood education.  In partnership with these organizations the Foundation is supporting the development of a system for 4-year-olds that can provide a profile of how the child learns.  This information can be used to inform how teachers and parents work with the child to help them learn. Grounded in evidence-based practices, Recognition and Response makes information available to early childhood educators so that they can address the immediate needs of children in the classroom without having to wait for a formal diagnosis.  (See www.recognitionandresponse.org) 

The second component of the Foundation’s learning disabilities focus is to support programs and initiatives that provide for effective teaching and the use of assistive technology, enabling all classrooms to be environments in which children with learning disabilities, and in fact all children, can learn and succeed academically.  Our additional focus is working with our current partners to identify mechanisms by which their initiatives can be brought to scale through concepts like Universal Design for Learning.

For additional information about the Foundation’s current work in our Learning Disabilities Program, please see our News Center.

For additional information about the Foundation’s previous work in our Learning Disabilities Program, please see our Biennial Report.