Learning Disabilities
Definition of learning disability
Learning disabilities affect the brain’s ability to receive, process, analyse or store information, but they do not have anything to do with a person’s intelligence. Most learning disabilities belong to two categories: verbal and non-verbal.
Verbal learning disabilities
People with verbal learning disabilities have difficulty with words, both spoken and written. The most common and best-known verbal learning disability is dyslexia1, which is a specific reading disability due to a defect in the brain’s processing of graphic symbols and which alters the way the brain processes written material.
Some people suffer from dysgraphia and have trouble with the act of writing, as their brain struggles to control the many things that go into writing – from moving their hand to form letter shapes to remembering the correct grammar rules.
Non-verbal learning disabilities
People with non-verbal learning disabilities may have difficulty processing what they see. They may have trouble making sense of visual details like numbers on a blackboard as in the case of dyscalculia1. Someone with a non-verbal learning disability may confuse the plus sign with the sign for division, for example. Some abstract concepts like fractions may be difficult to master for people with such disabilities.
Discovering learning disabilities
Learning disabilities usually first show up when a person has difficulty speaking, reading, writing, figuring out a maths problem, communicating with a parent or paying attention in class. Some learning disabilities are diagnosed in school when a parent or a teacher notices the child or student cannot follow directions for a game or is struggling to do work that should be done easily.
However, some children develop sophisticated ways of covering up their learning issues, so the problem is not recognised or addressed until they are in their teens, when schoolwork – and life – gets more complicated.
WARM UP
In your opinion, learning disabilities ...
- a. can be cured.
- b. can be compensated for with learning strategies.
- c. become incurable if not treated in time.
DO
1 Dys is a prefix used to make the opposite of a word. Do you know any examples?
MORE
1 Between 3 to 6% of people in the world are affected by dyscalculia, while 5 to 10% suffer from dyslexia.