Children with Learning Disabilities

Children with Learning Disabilities – The Struggles
Children with learning disabilities struggle with reading, spelling, vocabulary, reasoning, memory, and/or organization. These children may be very smart, but conventional instruction techniques just don’t work for them. For over 80% of these children with learning disabilities, weak underlying learning skills are the source of their difficulties and these skills can’t be simply “taught.” Rather, these children can succeed in school, careers, and life with the right program of assessment, training, and practice.

Children with Learning Disabilities – The Standards
Who are children with learning disabilities (LD)? Federal law states that they are students with “a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations. The term includes such conditions as perceptual handicaps, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.” (U.S.C. 1412: Section 1401 (a) (15)).

This is a very broad definition for children with learning disabilities. Over the years, a more precise “deficit performance standard” has been adopted to qualify LD students for special government funds and programs. The basis for this standard is a student’s IQ score and a series of achievement tests. Generally, if a student’s “achievement tests” are two or more years below “IQ tests,” that student has a “learning disability” for purposes of government assistance. Many educators and parents are frustrated with these vague government standards, mainly because the IQ-based model has done little to (i) uncover the real causes of learning struggles or (ii) treat these children in a way that achieves practical results.

Children with Learning Disabilities – The Causes
Children with learning disabilities come from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures. Similarly, there are a wide variety of causes that contribute to a student's learning struggles. While some children struggle due to basic genetic limits and others struggle because of poor or inadequate instruction, the largest single cause of learning struggles (over 80%) is weak underlying cognitive skills. Learning is a complex task that requires several mental functions to coordinate and work efficiently. Each step in the learning process places demands on underlying mental skills such as auditory and visual processing, memory, attention, logic and reasoning, and processing speed. If one or more of these skills is weak or underdeveloped, the student will struggle to learn. Even if other skills function at a high level, a single weak skill can thwart the entire learning process. This is the primary problem with the "deficit performance standard" described above. For example, a student might have four skills that measure above average and one skill that measures very low. Together, these five skills might generate a combined IQ score above average. However, if that one low skill is auditory processing, it could likely result in very poor reading, spelling, and writing, with the student being labeled with a “learning disability.” The student may be placed in a special education program where the symptom is treated and not the cause, which often leaves the student frustrated and without practical help.

Children with Learning Disabilities – The Solution
For children with learning disabilities who struggle with one or more weak cognitive skills, specific testing and training can change their capacity to learn. LearningRx provides affordable cognitive skills testing and training to parents and students from all across the nation. We do not concentrate on qualifying or labeling students with a “specific learning disability.” Rather, we test and uncover specific cognitive skill weaknesses and customize training to attack and strengthen those weaknesses. For the student held back by cognitive weaknesses, the changes can be rapid and dramatic.

The first step to determine if cognitive training could help you or your child is to take a skill assessment and evaluation. This will uncover and pinpoint the cause of the learning struggle. If a weak cognitive skill is to blame, one-on-one cognitive training options can be discussed. When you’re ready to step out of the “classifications” and focus on results, contact a LearningRx Center in your area today.

Stop the Struggle at LearningRx!

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