5 Ways to Know If Your Child Has a Learning Disability
Learning disabilities have become a very prevalent and common problem among children. They have been ignored for long enough due to huge misconceptions and stigmas in the society. However, there have been numerous and concerted efforts to try to detect these issues early and bring the disabilities to a better resolve.
Having a learning disorder entails difficulties in the processing of information or challenges regarding being acquainted with a certain skill and employing it perfectly and effectively. It might appear to be very difficult to manage this condition since the signs and symptoms are hard to detect, and they do not go away easily.
Despite this, learning disabilities are manageable, ensuring the child can be able to overcome the disability or live with it effectively hence yielding better results. This article looks at several signs that you can look at to detect whether your child has this disability. The information in this article will help you ensure the learning disability is well managed for the betterment of the child without any stigmatization.
Reading Disability
You can look at several things to determine whether your child has a reading disability. If your child reads at a very slow pace, has spelling difficulties, has issues with regard to making conclusions or inferences after reading, or has comprehension problems of what they have just read, then he/she might have a learning disability.
Reading disabilities commonly result from dyslexia. However, some professionals can be very specific and only use this term to refer to the problems pertaining to digesting information and thus resulting to reading difficulties. Any issues regarding the perception of spoken word or interpretation of a distinct set of certain distinct words can mean a learning disability. This is because it makes it quite difficult for a child to comprehend how letters culminate into the formation of a word or even the way they represent a certain specific sound.
Motor Skills Problems
Motor skills issues manifest themselves in ways and signs such as problems with typing and writing, eye movement issues, difficulty with speech, or sensitivity to smell or light. Other issues related to coordination and movement may manifest themselves. A kid with these problems will struggle with normal things such as feeding him/herself or simple tasks such as tying shoes.
Math Issues
Signs and problems to do with math can manifest themselves differently from one child to another. For instance, your child may have challenges with recognition of numbers, difficulties with learning to count and employing math symbols, comprehension of math problems, and memorizing specific math calculations. These issues commonly lead to a learning disability known as dyscalculia. It highly affects the child’s ability to do and solve math problems.
Issues With Non Verbal Communication
Your child may have problems with concentration and paying attention, issues with coordination, and challenges with interpretation of non-verbal cues in social set ups. In addition to this, he/she may struggle with the employment of appropriate language in social interactions, and comprehension problems especially in subsequent grades in school. Apart from this, your child may struggle with visual spatial and motor skills including other distinct skills that are vital in academic learning.
Tactile Perception
Tactile perception entails the brain’s inability to comprehend what the child is feeling. The child is constantly clumsy hence always dropping items due to lack of a proper grasp. If your child has this problem, he/she will have issues holding or grasping his/her pen, and might be forced to hold it too tightly to ultimately feel it. This issue will be an indicator or proper sign of an eventual learning disability.
Other Signs of Learning Disability
Apart from these issues, your child may have challenges comprehending and or following instructions, problems remembering what he/she just heard, challenges in sports or basic actions such as grasping a pencil, being out of touch with the simple concept of time, or being rebellious and overly defiant while at school or when reading or doing homework.
Although you can use the aforementioned tips to know whether your child has a learning disability, it is good to note that only a medical professional can fully determine this. Different disabilities have varying signs, and you will thus need the assistance of an expert to understand the underlying problem in your child. It is good to understand that learning disabilities can affect people of all intelligence levels. It is therefore only imperative that these signs get detected early and hence allowing a proper diagnosis to be made promptly. This is crucial so that the disability can be managed early before it spirals out of control.