Learning Disability and It’s Signs
Learning disability in children has always been a cause of worry amongst parents. Who would have thought that I would one day sit in the same seat as other parents to discuss the learning disability of my child?
First, I was the teacher who sat on the other side of the table, and I talked with parents about the educational planning for their child. Now, as a parent and educational professional, I am seated together with them.
Many questions filled my mind the day I sat in the IEP meeting: How did I miss the warning signs that my child needed help? Could I have spent more time in the library than I already had? Should I have spent more time with my child? How did we get to this point? Thankfully, I was able to catch the diagnosis at the onset of second grade.
There’s no denying the fact that it can be disheartening to find that your child has a learning disability. This, however, doesn’t mean that your child lacks intellect. Your child or student could be very smart but yet, experience a significant learning disability and problems associated with learning.
These learning disabilities are usually characterized by a certain degree of brain impairment, making the student quite unable to receive, store and properly process information quickly or other related issues.
It’s imperative to understand that they are different types of learning disabilities; however, each of this learning disability could affect your child’s overall cognitive abilities such as reading, reasoning, writing, listening and even doing basic math.
As a parent, it is very critical to identify your child’s learning disability at an early stage in their life so that your child can learn how to deal with the condition, or better yet receive specialized treatment of learning disabilities. As a result of actions taken, this would make it easier for the child to handle and process information. Consequently, that, in turn, would help improve their learning odds. probably almost
COMMON LEARNING DISABILITIES
I’d give you a rundown of some of the most common learning disabilities children face.
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DYSLEXIA
This is a reading disability that’s predominant in children.
It could manifest in ways such as, the child not being able to correlate with the alphabet or words he’s reading and the pronunciation of the word, i.e. the sound of the word. Or, it could be that, the child recognizes the alphabets he’s reading, but spelling and skipping of the words would lead to him taking a longer time to read and in mixing up the letters.
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DYSGRAPHIA
This is another writing disability.
it has to deal with the child being unable to pen down his thoughts on paper. Children suffering from this learning disability, usually find it very difficult to write complete sentences. More often than not, they have a poor grip on their writing tool, poor handwriting and bad grammar on paper.
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DYSCALCULIA
A math learning disability.
Here, the student or child has difficulty understanding very simple and basic mathematical problems. They have problems with numbers in general, and find it difficult to calculate numbers and sequence.
Okay, so I don’t want to bore you to the bones.
Let’s talk about some of the signs associated with learning disabilities. These are signs to determine if your child needs additional learning support, to know if he/her should be evaluated or not:
LEARNING DISABILITY SIGNS
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If your child is not developing age appropriately mentally or physically.
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Any type of speech, language, visual, mental or hearing impairment.
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Clinical diagnosis of ADD, ADHD or an Autism diagnosis.
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Emotional behaviors: anger, short attention span, low self-esteem, and depression.
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When learning new facts and skills is difficult.
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Following directions.
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Problems with pronunciation.
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Physical coordination is poor.
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Memory is poor.
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Spelling words is difficult.
Learning Disability
My child did exhibit signs of having a learning disability. The signs were: anger, short attention span, inability to follow directions, frustration with academic tasks, and reading below grade level. The school or a parent can determine learning disabilities in a child.
If the school has reasonable evidence that suggests that your child may have a learning disability, they will contact you to request your written permission to evaluate your child.
In addition, if you suspect that your child probably qualifies for special education services, you have the right to request that your child goes through an evaluation.
After working with my child at home, and having been in constant communication with the teacher, I requested a meeting for an evaluation.
It is a good idea to make this request in writing and to include your concerns and what next action you would like to see ( like a phone call or meeting.) If you would like to know more information about the IEP and its process, visit: http://www.parentcenterhub.org/repository/iep/
Finally, just as I mentioned earlier, it’s very important to watch your child closely to try and identify if they have any learning disability so you can help them early on as their educational future lies in your hands.
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