LEARNING DISABILITIES

• A condition which inhibits children to

understand oral or written language
because they manifest problems in :
- listening
- processing information
- talking
- reading
- writing
- spelling or
- arithmetic
• LD has also been referred to as:
– Perceptual handicaps
– Brain injury
– Minimal brain dysfunction
– Dyslexia
– Developmental aphasia
– Specific developmental disorder
– Sensory integration/sensory motor
dysfunction
• At the pre-school level, the learning
disabled child exhibits problems with:
– Pre-academic skills
– Gross motor
– Fine motor
– Visual auditory
– Tactile/kinesthetic perception
– Receptive and expressive language
 Characteristics of learners with
LD
• Disorders of attention
• Poor motor abilities
• Perceptual and information processing problems
• Failure to develop and mobilize cognitive
strategies for learning
• Oral language difficulties
• Reading difficulties
• Written language difficulties
• Mathematical difficulties
• Inappropriate social behavior
 Different types of learning
disabilities:
• Dysarthria- stuttering
• Dysgraphia- writing
• Motor aphasia- the inability to speak or to organize the
muscular movements of speech.
• Visual agnosia- sight
• Auditory agnosia- hearing
• Olfactory agnosia- smelling
• Dyscalculia- math
• Dyslexia- reading
 General causes of learning
disability:
1. Problematic pregnancies= before and
after delivery causing minimal brain
injury or brain dysfunction.
2. Biochemical imbalance= acquired from
artificial food colorings and flavorings in
many of the foods children take.
3. Environmental factors= such as poor
quality of instruction, emotional
disturbance and lack of motivation.