Learning Disabilities

Learning disabilities are neurobiological disorders that affect several cognitive processes related to one's learning ability. These disabilities often hinder the individual's ability to learn skills relating to the different learning processes, such as reading, writing, and/or calculating. These disabilities may make skills such as organization, planning, abstract reasoning, memory, and attention more challenging to acquire.

When learning disabilities interfere with one's ability to engage in age-appropriate learning processes, they can be identified at a young age. However, not everyone receives the appropriate evaluations that point out their disabilities, and therefore they may go about their academic lives without knowing that their struggles are related to certain disabilities.  

Some may describe learning disabilities as a gap between the person's potential and actual achievement. As individuals with learning disabilities often show average or above-average IQ scores and seem to demonstrate high intelligence, they cannot display the skills expected of them according to their chronological age.  

Symptoms

When one notices one of the following signs or symptoms of learning disabilities, one may need to be evaluated in order to determine what is leading to their struggles.  

  • Struggling to read at an age-appropriate speed  
  • Struggling to understand the meaning of the words they read  
  • Struggling to spell correctly  
  • Struggling to express themselves in written words  
  • Struggling to understand numbers and make sense of them (e.g., calculations)  
  • Struggling with mathematical reasoning  

Most of the presented symptoms should be below the expected skillset of an average person of the same chronological age and should also be interfering with their academic or occupational performance.  

Some examples of the most common learning disabilities are:  

  • Dyslexia involves a learning difficulty that hinders one's ability to read, write, and spell.    
  • Dyscalculia is a learning disability that hinders one's ability to deal with mathematical concepts, leading to difficulties in solving fundamental and abstract math problems.  
  • Dysgraphia is a learning disability that hinders one's ability to spell words on paper correctly.    

Prevalence

Learning disabilities are among the most common disabilities reported worldwide, with recent studies showing a worldwide prevalence ranging between 5% and 9% in 2015

Prognosis

While learning disabilities cannot be cured and will remain a lifelong challenge, those diagnosed with learning disabilities can succeed in different areas of life with appropriate treatment and interventions. It is always important to implement various strategies for treatment as early as possible in order to gain the most benefit out of them.

When to seek help

Awareness of the warning signs of learning difficulties helps parents identify when their child is struggling. It is crucial that interventions are used as soon as symptoms are recognized and identified.

Treatment

Learning disabilities are lifelong conditions that cannot be cured; however, individuals can learn how to minimize their effects on their lives and manage their symptoms effectively to thrive. Identifying disabilities from an early age and using early intervention can go a long way in helping to increase the chances of success in one's academic life as well as other aspects of their life.  

Children struggling with learning disabilities often receive treatment based on their skills, strengths, and weaknesses. Such treatments or interventions include special education services and individualized education programs (IEPs). Special education services help provide an enriching environment that meets the child's needs in order to enhance their skills. IEPs are individualized programs that aim to help the child reach specific goals, specify the exact services that the child would need, and allocate specialists to work with the child in different areas of functioning.  

Other interventions may be applied for specific learning difficulties. An example of this includes reducing the need for writing long paragraphs for those struggling with dysgraphia, where teachers may instead allow students to use summarized notes and outlines or pre-printed study sheets. Other modifications that may be used for students struggling with dyslexia include being given extra time to finish tasks or even providing the chance to hear questions instead of reading them. Mnemonic techniques, memory aids, rhymes, and music may help students struggling with dyscalculia to remember math concepts.