Idaho Learning Center

People with learning disabilities have average to superior intelligence. Many are gifted in math, science, fine arts, journalism, and other creative fields. A list of such people would include Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill and many others who have changed the course of our world.

However, their tremendous strengths are offset by noticeable weaknesses - an inability to read or write, memory problems, and difficulty understanding what is heard or seen. These difficulties stem, not from a physical problem with the eyes or ears, but rather from the basic neurological functioning of the brain.

Every human brain is created with a unique pattern of strengths and weaknesses. We each have certain areas that make sense to us easily as well as areas of difficulty that require outside explanation and extra effort to understand.

A learning disability is an area of weakness or inefficiency in brain function that significantly hinders our ability to learn or to function in life. It is a pattern of neurological dysfunction in the brain that causes a person to have difficulty correctly receiving information coming into the brain (perception), correctly processing that information once it is received (cognition/thinking), or satisfactorily responding to the information once it has been processed (written and verbal expression, visual-motor coordination, memory, etc).

Students with learning disabilities experience an imbalance in their own ability levels. They are very good at some things, very poor at others and feel the tension between what they can and cannot do. Frustration is a hallmark of a student with learning disabilities. Typically such students will either be failing in one or more academic areas or be expending excessive amounts of energy to succeed. Also, they are also highly inconsistent, able to do a task one day and unable the next.

(Source: NILD)

A learning disability is a neurological disorder. In simple terms, a learning disability results from a difference in the way a person's brain is "wired." Children with learning disabilities are as smart or smarter than their peers. But they may have difficulty reading, writing, spelling, reasoning, recalling and/or organizing information if left to figure things out by themselves or if taught in conventional ways.

A learning disability can't be cured or fixed; it is a lifelong issue. With the right support and intervention, however, children with learning disabilities can succeed in school and go on to successful, often distinguished careers later in life.

Parents can help children with learning disabilities achieve such success by encouraging their strengths, knowing their weaknesses, understanding the educational system, working with professionals and learning about strategies for dealing with specific difficulties.

Not all great minds think alike

Did you know that Albert Einstein couldn't read until he was nine? Walt Disney, General George Patton, and Vice President Nelson Rockefeller had trouble reading all their lives. Whoopi Goldberg and Charles Schwab and many others have learning disabilities which haven't affected their ultimate success.

Facts about learning disabilities

• Fifteen percent of the U.S. population, or one in seven Americans, has some type of learning disability, according to the National Institutes of Health.
• Difficulty with basic reading and language skills are the most common learning disabilities. As many as 80% of students with learning disabilities have reading problems.
• Learning disabilities often run in families.
• Learning disabilities should not be confused with other disabilities such as mental retardation, autism, deafness, blindness, and behavioral disorders. None of these conditions are learning disabilities. In addition, they should not be confused with lack of educational opportunities like frequent changes of schools or attendance problems. Also, children who are learning English do not necessarily have a learning disability.
• Attention disorders, such as Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities often occur at the same time, but the two disorders are not the same.

(Source: LD Online)

Although learning deficits are as individual as thumbprints, most fall into basic categories such as those listed below.

"Dys" means lack of function and "lexia" means words - thus "lack of function with words". Originally the term "Dyslexia" referred to a specific learning deficit that hindered a person's ability to read. More recently, however, it has been used as a general term referring to the broad category of language deficits such as those listed above.

Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability. Dyslexia refers to a cluster of symptoms, which result in people having difficulties with specific language skills, particularly reading. Students with dyslexia usually experience difficulties with other language skills such as spelling, writing, and pronouncing words. Dyslexia affects individuals throughout their lives; however, its impact can change at different stages in a person's life. It is referred to as a learning disability because dyslexia can make it very difficult for a student to succeed academically in the typical instructional environment, and in its more severe forms, will qualify a student for special education, special accommodations, or extra support services.

(Source: International Dyslexia Association)

Dyscalculia is a term referring to a wide range of life-long learning disabilities involving math. There is no single form of math disability, and difficulties vary from person to person and affect people differently in school and throughout life.

Since disabilities involving math can be so different, the effects they have on a person's development can be just as different. For instance, a person who has trouble processing language will face different challenges in math than a person who has difficulty with visual - spatial relationships. Another person with trouble remembering facts and keeping a sequence of steps in order will have yet a different set of math-related challenges to overcome.

(Source: National Center for Learning Disabilities)

Dysgraphia is a learning disability that affects writing abilities. It can manifest itself as difficulties with spelling, poor handwriting and trouble putting thoughts on paper. Because writing requires a complex set of motor and information processing skills, saying a student has dysgraphia is not sufficient. A student with disorders in written expression will benefit from specific accommodations in the learning environment, as well as additional practice learning the skills required to be an accomplished writer.

There are lots of ways the brain processes visual information. Weaknesses in a particular kind of visual processing can often be seen in specific difficulties with practical, everyday tasks. Weakness can occur in one or more category at the same time.

Many people without any kind of visual processing disorder experience problems with learning and behavior from time to time. However, if a person consistently displays difficulties with these tasks over time, testing for visual processing disorders by trained professionals should be considered.

Visual Discrimination

The Skill: Using the sense of sight to notice and compare the features of different items to distinguish one item from another.

Difficulties Observed: Seeing the difference between two similar letters, shapes or objects; noticing the similarities and differences between certain colors, shapes and patterns.

Visual Figure-Ground Discrimination

The Skill: Discriminating a shape or printed character from its background.

Difficulties Observed: Finding a specific bit of information on a printed page full of words and numbers; seeing an image within a competing background.

Visual Sequencing

The Skill: The ability to see and distinguish the order of symbols, words or images.

Difficulties Observed: Using a separate answer sheet; staying in the right place while reading a paragraph (example: skipping lines, reading the same line over and over); reversing or misreading letters, numbers and words; understanding math equations.

Visual Motor Processing

The Skill: Using feedback from the eyes to coordinate the movement of other parts of the body.

Difficulties Observed: Writing within lines or margins of a piece of paper; copying from a board or book; moving around without bumping into things; participating in sports that require well-timed and precise movements in space.

Visual Memory

The Skill: Long-term visual memory is the ability to recall something seen some time ago; short-term visual memory is the ability to remember something seen very recently.

Difficulties Observed: Remembering the spelling of familiar words with irregular spelling; reading comprehension; using a calculator or keyboard with speed and accuracy; remembering phone numbers.

Visual Closure

The Skill: The ability to know what an object is when only parts of it are visible; recognizing a picture of a familiar object from a partial image (example: a truck without its wheels); identifying a word with a letter missing; recognizing a face when one feature (such as the nose) is missing.

Spatial Relationships

The Skill: The ability to understand how objects are positioned in space in relation to oneself. This involves the understanding of distance (near or far), as well as the relationship of objects and characters described on paper or in a spoken narrative.

Difficulties Observed: Getting from one place to another; spacing letters and words on paper; judging time; reading maps.

(Source: National Center for Learning Disabilities)

What is auditory processing?

Auditory processing is a term used to describe what happens when your brain recognizes and interprets the sounds around you. Humans hear when energy that we recognize as sound travels through the ear and is changed into electrical information that can be interpreted by the brain. The "disorder" part of auditory processing disorder means that something is adversely affecting the processing or interpretation of the information.

Children with APD often do not recognize subtle differences between sounds in words, even though the sounds themselves are loud and clear. For example, the request "Tell me how a chair and a couch are alike" may sound to a child with APD like "Tell me how a couch and a chair are alike." It can even be understood by the child as "Tell me how a cow and a hair are alike." These kinds of problems are more likely to occur when a person with APD is in a noisy environment or when he or she is listening to complex information.

APD goes by many other names. Sometimes it is referred to as central auditory processing disorder (CAPD). Other common names are auditory perception problem, auditory comprehension deficit, central auditory dysfunction, central deafness, and so-called "word deafness."

What causes auditory processing difficulty?

We are not sure. Human communication relies on taking in complicated perceptual information from the outside world through the senses, such as hearing, and interpreting that information in a meaningful way. Human communication also requires certain mental abilities, such as attention and memory. Scientists still do not understand exactly how all of these processes work and interact or how they malfunction in cases of communication disorders. Even though your child seems to "hear normally," he or she may have difficulty using those sounds for speech and language.

The cause of APD is often unknown. In children, auditory processing difficulty may be associated with conditions such as dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, autism, autism spectrum disorder, specific language impairment, pervasive developmental disorder, or developmental delay. Sometimes this term has been misapplied to children who have no hearing or language disorder but have challenges in learning.

What are the symptoms?

Children with auditory processing difficulty typically have normal hearing and intelligence. However, they have also been observed to:

• Have trouble paying attention to and remembering information presented orally
• Have problems carrying out multistep directions
• Have poor listening skills
• Need more time to process information
• Have low academic performance
• Have behavior problems
• Have language difficulty (e.g., they confuse syllable sequences and have problems developing vocabulary and understanding language)
• Have difficulty with reading, comprehension, spelling, and vocabulary

(Source: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders)

Nonverbal learning disabilities can be tricky to recognize and diagnose. Children with this disorder are unable to recognize and translate nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions or tone of voice, into meaningful information. Because of this, these children are sometimes mislabeled as emotionally disturbed because of their inappropriate responses to nonverbal stimuli. Here, we have collected some articles to aid in the recognition, assessment, and treatment of nonverbal learning disabilities.

(Source: LD Online)

Signs and Symptoms:

• Has trouble recognizing nonverbal cues such as facial expression or body language
• Shows poor psycho-motor coordination; clumsy; seems to be constantly �getting in the way,� bumping into people and objects
• Using fine motor skills a challenge: tying shoes, writing, using scissors
• Needs to verbally label everything that happens to comprehend circumstances, spatial orientation, directional concepts and coordination; often lost or tardy
• Has difficulty coping with changes in routing and transitions
• Has difficulty generalizing previously learned information
• Has difficulty following multi-step instructions
• Make very literal translations
• Asks too many questions, may be repetitive and inappropriately interrupt the flow of a lesson
• Imparts the �illusion of competence� because of the student�s strong verbal skills

(Source: Learning Disabilities Association of America)

Attention disorders, such as Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities often occur at the same time, but the two disorders are not the same.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a condition that becomes apparent in some children in the preschool and early school years. It is hard for these children to control their behavior and/or pay attention. It is estimated that between 3 and 5 percent of children have ADHD, or approximately 2 million children in the United States. This means that in a classroom of 25 to 30 children, it is likely that at least one will have ADHD.

(Source: National Institute of Mental Health)

Learn more about ADHD below:

(Source: LD Online)

Educational Therapy was developed to treat assumed, underlying causes of learning difficulties rather than simply treating the symptoms. It is a true therapy in that it aims the intervention just above the student�s level of functioning and raises expectations for performance. Students are trained to view themselves as competent, confident learners. The goal of Educational Therapy is to help students develop tools of independent learning in the classroom and in life.

Students in Educational Therapy receive two 80-minute sessions of intensive educational therapy per week. This can be either in individual or small group settings. These sessions include a variety of techniques designed to address students� specific areas of difficulty and to improve their overall ability to think, reason and process information. Techniques emphasize basic skill areas such as reading, writing, spelling and math, applying reasoning skills within each area.

Students are taught by educational therapists, who are trained specifically in educational therapy methodology and receive on-going graduate level training leading to certification. Regular collaboration between the educational therapist, parents and classroom teachers is encouraged in order to assess progress and appropriately adjust educational programs for each student.