Having a learning disability doesn't mean you can't learn, but you'll need some help and need to work extra hard. If you have a learning disability such as dyslexia or dyscalculia, remember that you are not slow or stupid.

    Learning disabilities can be genetic. That means they can be passed down in families through the genes. But kids today have an advantage over their parents. Learning experts now know a lot more about the brain and how learning works, and it's easier for kids to get the help they need.

    Dyslexia is a learning disability hat means a kid has a lot of trouble reading and writing. Kids who have trouble with math may have dyscalculia. Other kids may have language disorders, meaning they have trouble understanding language and understanding what they read.

    It can be confusing, though. What qualifies as “trouble" enough to be diagnosed as a learning disability? Reading, doing math, and writing letters may be tough for lots of kids at first. But when those troubles don't fade away and it's really difficult to make any progress, it's possible that the kid has a learning disability.

    Finding out you have a learning disability can be upsetting. You might feel different from everyone else. But the truth is that learning disabilities are pretty common. And if your learning specialist or psychologist has figured out which one you're facing, you're on the right track. Now, you can start getting the help you need to do better in school.

    But for this special help to really work, you'll need to practice the new skills you're leaning. It may take a lot of efforts every day. That can be a challenge, but you can do it Soon, you'll enjoy the results of all your hard work: more fun and success at school.

    Birds' feathers are some of the most strikingly variable animal characteristics that can be observed by the eyes. The patterns that we see in birds' feathers are made up of combinations of scales, bars, and spots.

    We already know why birds have colored feathers. Generally, the color of feathers may protect a bird from being noticed by the enemy in the environment, or it can make a bird more appealing to potential mates by helping them to stand out. These aspects are well known. A greater mystery has been how the patterns are created.

    Dr. Ismael Galván and his team studied the color of feathers to see what types of colors were present in birds' complex feather patterns. The study shows they mainly consist of two types of colors: melanin（黑色素）, which produce a range of black, grey, brown, and orange color, and carotenoids（类胡萝卜色素）, which are used to create brighter colors.

    Birds cannot produce carotenoids on their own. For feathers with bright colors, birds must consume food items that contain these paints, and the carotenoids circulate through the blood and to the feather. Melanin, on the other hand, is produced by special cells in the birds' bodies.

    The team found that about 32% if the species studied have complex color patterns, with the vast majority of these complex patterns produced by melanin rather than carotenoids. If the birds were artists, they would use carotenoids as a broad brush to produce color patches, with melanin as a detail paint brush to produce more complex designs.

    But a few birds are exceptions to this rule: Three bird families do have complex patterns without melanin.

    Chimps will cooperate in certain ways, like gathering in war parties to protect their territory. But beyond the minimum requirements as social beings, they have little instinct to help one another. Chimps in the wild seek food for themselves. Even chimp mothers regularly decline to share food with their children, who are able from a young age to gather their own food.

In the laboratory, chimps don't naturally share food either. If a chimp is put in a cage where he can pull in one plate of food for himself or, with no great effort, a plate that also provides food for a neighbor to the next cage, he will pull at random —he just doesn't care whether his neighbor gets fed or not. Chimps are truly selfish.

    Human children, on the other hand are extremely cooperative. From the earliest ages, they decide to help others, to share information and to participate in achieving common goals. The psychologist Michael Tomasello has studied this cooperativeness in a series of experiments with very young children. He finds that if babies aged 18 months see an unrelated adult with hands full trying to open a door, almost all will immediately try to help.

    There are several reasons to believe that the urges to help, inform and share are not taught .but naturally possessed in young children. One is that these instincts appear at a very young age before most parents have started to train children to behave socially. Another is that the helping behaviors are not improved if the children are rewarded. A third reason is that social intelligence develops in children before their general cognitive (认知的) skills, at least when compared with chimps. In tests conducted by Tomasello, the children did no better than the chimps on the physical world tests, but were considerably better at understanding the social world.

    The core of what children's minds have and chimps' don't is what Tomasello calls shared intentionality. Part of this ability is that they can infer what others know or are thinking. But beyond that, even very young children want to be part of a shared purpose. They actively seek to be part of a “we”, a group that intends to work toward a shared goal.

    Have you ever used any language learning apps? If you want to learn a language and speak it right away, modernize your learning style and adopt an app. It doesn't cost much, but it's worth a lot. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}.

    Learn anywhere and anytime

Personally, I love to review my vocabulary quietly in my bed before sleep using a language learning app. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. Of course, it's also possible to learn a language with a book, but it's so much more entertaining when you are using a language learning app!

    Never waste time again

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. More often than not, we will get really annoyed or even stressed when time is wasted. However, when using a language learning app, time seems to go by quickly. We can take the opportunity to review and play a little while we have to wait around.

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    Have you ever taken up a course at night? I have, but I found it hard to complete it because there were many restrictions. I was required to attend classes twice a week on a fixed schedule. But when we study on our own with a language learning app, we can study at our own pace.

    Save your money

    Most language schools haven't evolved to meet the needs of modem society. And that's before we've even begun to talk about the price, which is often quite unaffordable. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. But the benefits are huge, offering you the freedom and independence to learn at very little expense.

A. Quicken your progress

B. Work without restrictions

C. Mobile apps can handle complex applications

D. Learning with the help of an app doesn't cost much at all

E. When I travel, I also use it to listen to some podcasts (播客)

F. We all have the experience of waiting for an appointment or a bus

G. Here are some benefits of language learning apps used on smart phones

    I am a Korean-American growing up in Korea. My delayed first day at Wheaton College was my first time in the U.S. in more than 10 years.

    From my first time eating at Chipotle to the endless variety of Scotch tapes on display at Target, culture shock affected me deeply. I was flooded with the rush of Starbucks caffeine (咖啡因). {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    On that first day to-do list was a job interview for a worker position. The interviewer asked where l was from. Seoul. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} English literature. He said, "Oh, you must be enthusiastic about coming all the way here to study English from Korea'!"

    That comment annoyed me, in a way I couldn't describe then. It's clearer now: {#blank#}3{#/blank#} The interviewer was measuring my passion without knowing anything about me, only based on where l was coming from.

    That interview was a small example of what came after that first day of college, but I hesitate to tell the story because some people who made ridiculously ignorant (无知的) comments ended up being my good friends. This wasn't easy. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Through them, I learned to express my feelings clearly in words. To them, I owe this story.

    We get to know some people and others we don't. We make decisions to involve in conversations or not. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} otherwise, I would have stayed in my bubble, meeting only people who say things that sound right.

    You've heard of the fat suit and the pregnancy suit; now meet AGNES—the old person suit.

    AGNES stands for "Age Gain Now Empathy(换位体验)System" and was designed by researchers at MIT's AgeLab to let you know what it feels like—physically—to be 75 years old. "The business of old age demands new tools," said Joseph Coughlin, director of the AgeLab. "While focus groups and observations and surveys can help you understand what the older consumer needs and wants, young marketers never get that ‘Ah ha!' moment of having difficulty opening a jar, or getting in and out of a car. That's what AGNES provides. "

    Coughlin and his team carefully adjusted the suit to make the wearer just as uncomfortable as an old person who has spent a lifetime eating poorly and not doing much exercise. Special shoes provide a feeling of imbalance, while braces on the knees and elbows limit joint mobility. Gloves give the feeling of decreased strength and mobility in the hands and wrists, and earplugs make it difficult to hear high-pitched sounds and soft tones. A helmet with straps(带)attached to it presses the spine(脊柱).

    VAGNES has been used most recently by a group of students working on a design of an updated walker. By wearing the suit they could see for themselves what design and materials would make the most sense for a physically limited older person. Coughlin said the suit has also been used by clothing companies, car companies and retail goods companies to help them understand the limitations of an older consumer. An unexpected benefit they've found with AGNES is that it has become a powerful tool to get younger people to invest in their long-term health.