To understand what it is learning difficulty, it is necessary that if it analyzes some theories that defines what it is learning. Amongst the innumerable ones that it approaches the subject, the behavioristas, the cognitivistas, of the mediation and the humanists are distinguished. In the behaviorista vision, the learning can be observed and be mensurada by the manifest behaviors for the citizens, after to have been stimulated, intentionally. According to Ellis (1994), this vision predominated per two decades after World War II and had as inspiration the theories of general learning proposals for psychologists as Watson (1924, apud Ellis, 1994) and Skinner (1957, apud Ellis, 1994), amongst others. According to this paradigm, in case that the behaviors defined in the mannering objectives are not disclosed because it had a problem, generally are attributed to the proper apprentice, for some deficit that presents or its incapacity to react adequately to the stimulatons that had been offered to it.
In the behavioristas explanations for the learning difficulties not it has references on the functioning of the mind or the emotions of the apprentice. The learning for Skinner is fruit of operative conditioning, that is, a behavior is awardee, strengthened, until it is conditional in such a way that to if removing the reinforcement, the behavior continues to happen. The conditioning excludes any consideration on thoughts, feelings, intentions, in general, in the fast mental processes, and if it worries, exclusively, with external causes behaviors to the mind and passveis of comment (BLOCK, STOLEN & TEIXEIRA, 2003, P. 13). In the cognitivistas theories, of which the construtivismo is part, all the evidence must be placed in the superior mental processes: perception, processing of information, resolution of problems, understanding, attribution of meanings, storage of information, use knowing constructed of them, etc., that allow the citizens to know the world and to construct its cognitivas structures, or bringing up to date potentials latent.