Learn to understand and cope with Learning Disability (LD)

Many school-age children demonstrate significant difficulties in the classroom, in multiple related areas like reading, writing, language, mathematics and kinesthetic. Usually, these difficulties gradually disappear with age as the child learns age appropriate learning skills.

Abhay (name changed) had repeated Senior Kindergarten in his previous school. He then joined a new school in Class I. As he got promoted to Class II, he demonstrated significant difficulties in early literacy skills and visual processing. He belonged to a family where English was the second language. Abhay's mother was upset with him and told him she would not come to school if he did not get good scores in his test. He was also sent for tuitions for 2 hours and had no time to play or indulge in any sport. She also reported he is very forgetful and cannot recall simple things like what he had eaten for breakfast the previous morning. Family members would mock him for his memory issues. He did not have friends, often used foul language in a fit of anger. Abhay's teacher reported his skills were significantly below grade-level in phonological awareness, decoding, writing and listening. Abhay was unable to write the letters of the alphabet sequentially. When asked to spell, he did not exhibit letter- sound association. When assessed by a Psychologist, he was diagnosed with a Specific Learning Disorder with moderate impairment in reading, spelling and reading comprehension. His IQ was in the normal range.

Learning disability (LD) is a neurological processing disorder affecting the Cortex area of the brain. It may be an inherited disorder prevalent in both girls and boys. Depending on what part is affected a person may have problems with learning, understanding or using language, be it spoken or written, resulting in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, or do mathematical calculations, along with motor activities.

LD exists when a student's overall ability to learn is average or higher, but his achievement in academics and skills in one or more areas are significantly weaker.Children with LD have low metacognitive ability, which is the ability to use prior knowledge to plan a strategy for approaching a learning task, take necessary steps to problem solve, reflect on and evaluate results, and modify one's approach as needed.

Identification and diagnosis can be done by observing the child's activity level compared to their peers. Some of the signs are to constantly engage in restless or fidgety motor activities like finger/foot tapping, not able to sit still for longer periods of time, skipping tasks, inattention, failing to react or delayed reaction time, accomplishing or attempting tasks at a slow phase.

While writing ideas and organizing thoughts on paper they reverse or omit letters, word /phrases. Make mistakes in sentence structure, organization, frequently spell the same word differently in a single document, copying from board, may read well but not write well ( or vice versa).

In school they may have difficulty with arithmetic, math language and concepts, time sequencing and problem solving, quantitative thinking, performing calculations.

Development of speech and articulation may be delayed or slow, ability to explain things orally, but not in writing, telling or understanding jokes or stories. Some of them may not respond to sounds of spoken language, or may consistently misunderstand what is being said, respond in an inappropriate manner, unrelated to what is said or only respond partially to what is said, bothered by different frequencies of sound (i.e., music, car horns, sudden loud noises) or may be overly sensitive to sound, difficulty in differentiating sounds that occur simultaneously.

In the area of attention they may face difficulty in concentrating on a given task for a longer span of time, attention becomes fixed upon a single task which is repeated over and over, trouble conforming to routines, gets easily distracted and experiences stress on extended mental effort.

Because the area which works for gross and fine motor activities of a person is affected in LD they face difficulties to use both sides of body in balance, regain and maintaining balance, rhythmic control, translation of visual cues to movement, visual monitoring of motor performance, changing direction while writing letters, establishing and maintaining visual contact with a target, organizing of drawing on papers, poor tactile discrimination and excessive need to touch, poor writing and drawing performance. They may perform similar tasks differently from day to day and have trouble dialing phone numbers or holding a pen/pencil. This increases the tendency to hurt his/her self.

Sometimes there is a lack of social skills because of which they misinterpret non-verbal social cues, experience social isolation, inappropriate eye contact, ability to form and maintain relationships and self esteem are affected.

Some remedies that are recommended are:

• Early intervention.

• Special Education service.

• Child must be accepted and loved.

• Recognize and understand the problem by family and peer group.

• Strong degree of optimism and patience.

LD can't be cured but with support and intervention, kids with diagnosed with LD can be successful in learning and life.

By

Ms. Jutika Boro

Psychologist & Special Educator

Consultant, MIND India

Ask Dr Sangeeta Goswami

Question:How will I know if my child is facing learning disabilities?

LD exists when a student's overall ability to learn is average or higher, but his achievement in academics and skills in one or more areas are significantly weaker. You can check whether your child is able to read and write at par with the other students of the class. Also, observe for difficulty in or not being able to read, understand or follow written sentences, usage of grammar, confusing similar letters or numbers, reversing them, reading silently or aloud, even with practice days.LD children do not have below average IQ but will have difficulty in distinguishing between visual stimuli, fill in missing parts when only part of a word or object is seen, experiences difficulty remembering and re-visualize images or sequences, sequencing for example instead of saying "He is eating a banana", the child may say " Banana eating He is".

It is important for parents to observe the skills and talent of the child apart from academics and encourage the child to harness to skills to enhance the child's self esteem

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