What are Learning Disabilities?

Learning disability. The two words may bring back memories of fellow students being taken out of your classroom and sent to a special room for a few hours a day or a week. Those words have become a negative label, a stigmatism, for many people. But what is a learning disability and why do some people have them and others don't? And what does it mean if you or your child is diagnosed with a learning disability?

Learning disabilities have been legally described in educational by-laws and under the Americans with Disabilities Act as "a significant gap between a person's intelligence and the skills a person has achieved at each age." The National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) define a learning disability or LD as "a disorder that affects people's ability to either interpret what they see and hear or to link information from different parts of the brain. These limitations can show up in many ways—as specific difficulties with spoken and written language, coordination, self-control, or attention. Such difficulties extend to schoolwork and can impede learning to read or write, or to do math."

The following list is symptoms of a possible learning disability. This list is comprised of warning signs; it is not a checklist. Your child may have a learning disability if he has poor estimation of space, poor coordination, a tendency to lurch forward, a problem understanding what is said, over-sensitivity to noise, difficulty following simple directions, delayed speech and language, sounds and words out of sequence (i.e. aminals and pasghetti), a poor vocabulary, a loss of emotional control, an under- or over-reaction to touch, difficulty using his hands to manipulate buttons, toys, etc., difficulty focusing, problems distinguishing shapes and colors, difficulty remembering what he sees, difficulty remembering the order or sequence of things, disorganized movements, and difficulty keeping up with his things. Other warning signs include double jointed sitting, not enjoying being read to, indiscriminate or over-reactions, laughter one moment and crying the next, difficulty with or avoidance of blocks and puzzles, clumsiness (i.e. knocking over glasses of milk or juice), and untied shoes and shirt hanging out. If your child has more than one of these symptoms, consult your physician and your child's school. Your child may have a problem separate from a learning disability and only a doctor will be able to properly diagnose the cause of the symptoms.