Learning Disabilities

Seminar in Learning Disabilities

Fall Semester/ Academic Year 2023-24
Topics

Definition,
Characteristics
Causes.
Types of LD
Introduction to LD

• The term learning disabilities was founded in 1963 by Samuel Kirk. At

that time, children with LD were referred to by such terms as:
• “perceptually handicapped,”
• “brain-injured,” and
• “neurologically impaired”
• were served in classrooms for students with MR or in most cases, were
not receiving any specialized services in the public schools.
What is a learning disability?

Learning Disability:
Learning disability is a neurological condition that interferes with
a person’s ability to process, store or produce information.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxo5cpzP3zs
The Learning Disability Association of America
Definition of a Learning Disability

 LEARNING DISABILITY:
(1) a disorder in the processing of information involved in
understanding and using language (spoken or written)
(2) Difficulties in learning, particularly reading, writing, mathematics
and/or spelling (every student with LD has academic problems)
(3) The problem is not primarily due to other causes
(4) Special educational services needed to succeed in school
Visual Processing

e.g., does he understand it quickly

Visual Processing involves how well
and easily? Can he "visualize" things
a student can use visual information.
(like pictures, shapes, words, etc.) in
When he sees something, especially
his head? Can he remember
something complex,
information that he sees?
Read this Story

Mhat I bib last snwwer

Wy frieub Roddie donght a bop frow the det shod for $148. His darents pave
hiw the wouey pnt saip that he wonlp have to day half to thew over the
snwwer dy poinp sbecial chores aronud the yarp. He fipnreb he conlp rebay
his dareuts L4 bollars.
Later that pay, I cawe over to share sih exciteweut. With the bop’s pip ears
aup mappinb tail, we blayeb all bay. Roddie chose a dlne collar for hiw. The
E of ns bassep onr snwwer pays dike ripinp, hikiup, and blayinp pall.
Answer these Questions

• Mhat bib Roddie duy frow the det shod?

• Mhat color bib Roddie choose for the bop’s collar?
• Hom wnch wouey bib Roddie fipnre he conlp rebay his dareuts?
What I did last summer

• My friend Robbie bought a dog from the pet shop for $148.
• His parents gave him the money but said that he would have to pay half to them
over the summer by doing special chores around the yard.
• He figured he could repay his parents 74 dollars.
• Later that day, I came over to share his excitement.
• With the dog’s big ears and wagging tail, we played all day.
• Robbie chose a blue collar for him.
• The 3 of us passed our summer days bike riding, hiking, and playing ball.
Answers to
What I Did Last Summer

 What did Robbie buy from the pet shop? A dog

 What color did Robbie choose for the dog’s collar? Blue
 How much money did Robbie figure he could repay his parents? 74 dollars
Auditory Processing

Auditory Processing- involves how well a student can use auditory

information.

• When he hears something, especially something detailed, does he

understand it quickly and easily? Can he “hear" things (like sounds,
numbers, words, etc.) in his head? Can he remember information that he
hears?
 Problem is NOT Primarily Due to Other Causes

Mental Retardation
Visual Disability Emotional Disturbance
Emotional, Cultural or
Hearing Disability Economic Disadvantage

Motor Disability
 Learning disabilities can affect one’s ability to

• Read
• Write
• Speak
• Spell
• Compute math
• Reason and also affect a person’s
attention, memory, coordination,
social skills and emotional
maturity.
•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=JE9Wu-bsNFA
Characteristics
A child with LD typically shows

General
Perceptual motor
Hyperactivity Emotional liability coordination
impairment
deficits

Disorder of
Disorder of Specific academic
Impulsivity memory and
attention problems
thinking

Equivocal
neurological signs
and EEG
abnormalities
A child with LD typically shows

Learning disability should be considered as a possible cause if a child has

trouble with one or more of the following behavioral problems.
Behavioral Problems:
Fidgeting of hands and feet
Difficulty in remaining on the seat and awaiting turns
A child with LD typically shows

High distractibility
Blurting out answer before questions have been completed
Frequent shift from one activity to another
Difficulty in sustaining attention
Difficulty in playing quietly
Losing things necessary for school or home
Engages in physically dangerous activities without thinking of possible consequences
Low frustration tolerance
Day dreaming
Mood swings
A child with LD typically shows

• Academic Problems of Learning :

• The academic deficits in children are the hallmarks of this disorder
• Poor reading
• Guessing the difficult words
• Missing out words in between while reading
• Slow reading
• Missing out lines while reading
• Repeating the same sentence
• Reading without pause in between
• Confusing similar words while reading
A child with LD typically shows

• Does not see main theme in a picture picks up some minute details
• Sequencing errors: e.g., was / Saw, On / No.
• Reading improves with larger print
• Loses place frequently
• Complains eye hurt, itch / rubs eyes
• Turn head or paper at odd angles
• Reversals ‘b’ for ‘d’ inversion ‘u’ for ‘n’
Causes

• Researchers do not know all of the possible causes of learning disabilities, but
they have found a range of risk factors during their work to find potential
causes.
• Potential causes are brain damage, heredity, biochemical imbalance and
environmental factors.
Causes- Biological

• Acquired Trauma: This involves injury to the Central Nervous System (CNS) that originates outside the
individual. This can occur during gestation, at or after birth.
• Prenatal Causes: It is also generally linked to maternal drug consumption during prenatal course. Chief among
these is consuming alcohol and non prescription drugs, and cigarettes. The adverse effects vary with different
individuals.
• Perinatal Causes: Perinatal causes include prematurity, anoxia, prolonged labor and injury due to the use of
forceps. However, while these have been linked with children with learning disabilities, it does not mean that
all children who have experienced the perinatal causes listed above are learning disabled.
•
 Causes

• Postnatal Causes: Stroke, meningitis, encephalitis and head trauma (e.g. Motor accident)
may lead to learning disabilities. Behaviors’ due to brain injury can vary. This depends on the
level of severity of the injury and the age of the victim...Behaviors linked with brain injury
include irritability, destructibility & impulsivity.
• Not all children with learning disability display clinical (Medical) evidence of brain damage, or
all children with brain damage have learning disabilities.
 Causes

• Genetic Factors: While the view is often expressed that learning disabilities runs in families, it is very difficult to
indicate whether it is due to a single gene, chromosomal aberrations or a combination of genetic and environmental
factors. Over the years, evidence has accumulated that learning disabilities can be inherited (Hallahun &Kuffman,
2006)
• Turner Syndrome: This is diagnosed in the female when one X chromosome is missing the physical characteristics
include short stature, webbing of neck, underdeveloped sexual maturation, hearing, vision and cardiac problems. The
older literature generally linked ‘Turner Syndrome’ with intellectual disability, but recent research points out that
more children have learning disabilities.
• Major problems include deficits in visuospatial skills, memory, math attention, hyperactivity, poor handwriting; poor
social skills and lower self esteem are also noted.
Causes

• Kleinfelter Syndrome: The presence of an extra X chromosome in males, aberration among

males major problems include secondary male sex characteristics, sterility, poor self esteem,
learning disabilities in speech language and reading.
• Psycho social Environmental Causes: Very seldom does one of the following cause ‘Learning
Disabilities’. However when they operate in a cluster they may be seen as causative.
 Causes

• Limited exposure to school instruction and impoverished living conditions early in a child life probably
contributes to the achievement deficit experienced by children with poor academic achievements.
• Evidence for this relationship can be found in infants and toddlers, who received infrequent communication
exchanges with their parents. They are more likely to have deficit in vocabulary, language use and intellectual
development before entering school.
• Another factor is related with the quality of education they received during their early years. Many special
educators today believe that many children exhibit disability not because of anything wrong with their
perception, synapses or memory, but because they have been seriously ‘’mistaught’’
Causes

• Other reasons of LD are:

• Insufficient early experience: lack of stimulation or excessive stimulation.
• Behavior problems: Absence of interaction / mediation on the part of the parents
• Cultural linguistic differences
• Malnutrition
• Poor teaching or lack of educational opportunity: Cognitive limitation of parent
• Traumatic experience / prolonged continuous stress: Absence of social support system for family, are
all found to be significant.
Causes

Many theories in 1970’s find that the chemical disturbances within a child’s body
results in learning disabilities. Examples like Feingold (1976) claimed that artificial
colouring and flavouring in many of the foods children eat can cause learning
disabilities and hyperactivity. But few studies supported Feingold’s theory.

Research suggested that inability of the child’s blood stream to synthesise a normal
amount of vitamins is also one of the reasons of learning disability. Few studies
conducted to find out the effect of megavitamin treatment on children with learning
disabilities and hyperactivity found that huge doses of vitamin did not improve the
child’s performance. (Arnold Christopher, Huestis & Smeltzer, 1978)
 Causes

• To summarise, not all children with learning disability display clinical (medical) evidence of
brain damage, and not all children with brain damage have learning disabilities. Secondly,
assuming a child’s learning problems are caused by a dysfunctioning brain may serve as a build-
in excuse for continuing to provide ineffective instruction. When a student with suspected brain
damage fails to learn, his teacher may be quick to presume that the brain injury prevents him
from learning and may be slow to analyze and change instructional variables. Third by, whether
“learning disabilities in an individual case are symptoms that result from brain injury or
development, delay will not essentially alter the methods of teaching the student” (Myers
&Hammill, 1990, p. 22).
 Types of Learning Disabilities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov0W3IhxlMM
Dyslexia
A language and reading disability
Dyscalculia
Problems with arithmetic and math concepts
Dysgraphia
A writing disorder resulting in illegibility
Dyspraxia (Sensory Integration Disorder)
Problems with motor coordination
www.specialneeds.com/categories/children-a
nd-parents/diagnoses
Central Auditory Processing Disorder
Difficulty processing and remembering
language-related tasks
Non-Verbal Learning Disorders
Trouble with nonverbal cues, e.g., body
language; poor coordination, clumsy
Visual Perceptual/Visual Motor Deficit
Reverses letters; cannot copy accurately;
Language Disorders (Aphasia/Dyspha
sia)
Trouble understanding spoken language;
poor reading comprehension
Types of LD
Dyslexia

Definitions: The research section on Developmental Dyslexia of the

world federation of neurology defined dyslexia in two ways (Critchley,
1970)

‘Dyslexia is a disorder manifested by difficulty in learning to read

despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence and socio
cultural opportunity. It is dependent upon fundamental cognitive
disabilities which are frequently of constitutional origin’.
https://www.medicinenet.com/learning_disability/article.htm
Symptoms

• Dyslexia can cause challenges that involve:

• Reaching development milestones
• Children with dyslexia may learn to crawl, walk, talk, and ride a bicycle later than their peers.
• Learning to speak
• A child with dyslexia may take longer to learn to speak. They may also mispronounce words, find rhyming
challenging, and appear not to distinguish between different word sounds.
• Learning to read
• This difficulty can present as early as in preschool. A child may find it difficult to match letters to sounds, and they
may have trouble recognizing the sounds in words.
Symptoms

• Dyslexia symptoms can also arise when young people start learning more complex skills. For
example, the condition can cause difficulty with:
• grammar
• reading comprehension
• reading fluency
• sentence structure
• in-depth writing
 Types of LD

•Dysgraphia: is a writing disability where people find

it hard to form letters and write within a defined
space. Many people with dysgraphia possess
handwriting that is uneven and inconsistent. Many
are able to write legibly but do so very slowly or very
small. Typically, people with dysgraphia are unable to
visualize letters and do not possess the ability to
remember the motor patterns of letters and writing
requires a large amount of energy and time
Symptoms

• Kids with dysgraphia have unclear, irregular, or inconsistent handwriting, often with different slants, shapes,
upper- and lower-case letters, and cursive and print styles. They also tend to write or copy things slowly.
• Cramped grip, which may lead to a sore hand
• Difficulty spacing things out on paper or within margins (poor spatial planning)
• Frequent erasing
• Inconsistency in letter and word spacing
• Poor spelling, including unfinished words or missing words or letters
• Unusual wrist, body, or paper position while writing
Dyscalculia or mathematical Disabilities

• Large number of children continue to experience failure in Math , 88% of the children referred to the learning disable programs in
his study . (Koppiz, 1971), were between one to three years below the expected grade level in arithmetic computation
• School-aged kids with dyscalculia may find it hard to:
• Estimate things, like how long something takes or the ceiling height
• Understand math word problems
• Learn basic math, like addition, subtraction, and multiplication
• Link a number (1) to its corresponding word (one)
• Understand fractions
Dyscalculia

• Understand graphs and charts (visual-spatial concepts)

• Count money or make change
• Remember phone numbers or ZIP codes
• Tell time or read clocks
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVf_OHK2hHQ
Dyspraxia

• Dyspraxia: Dyspraxia is a disorder that affects the development of motor skills. People with
dyspraxia have trouble planning and executing fine motor tasks, which can range from
waving goodbye to getting dressed. Dyspraxia is a life-long disorder with no cure, but
options are available for helping to improve a persons ability to function and be
independent. Dyspraxia is not a learning disability, but it commonly coexists with other
learning disabilities that can affect learning ability.
Auditory Processing Disorders

• Auditory Processing Disorders: Auditory processing disorders are disorders that may cause
a person to struggle with distinguishing similar sounds, as well as other difficulties. Auditory
processing disorders are not considered learning disabilities by the Canadian Government,
but they might explain why someone would be having troubles with learning
VPD

• Visual Processing Disorders: Visual processing disorders are disorders that

cause people to struggle with seeing the differences between similar
letters, number, objects, colors, shapes and patterns. Just like auditory
processing disorders, visual processing disorders are not considered
learning disabilities by the Canadian Government, but could be an issue
when it comes to learning.
Non-verbal Learning Disorders

• Non-verbal learning disabilities (NLD), or non-verbal learning disorders , are neurological

syndromes that develop in the right side of the brain. People with NLD have a very strong
verbal ability, remarkable memory and spelling skills, and strong auditory retention;
although they possess poor social skills and have difficulty understanding facial expression
and body language. Many do not react well to change and some possess poor social
judgement. Some people with NLD have poor co-ordination, balance problems and difficulty
with fine motor skills.
 Videos

• https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=learning+disabilities&qpvt=learning+disabilities&FO
RM=VDRE
 Celebrities with dyslexia

• Tom Cruise • Henry “The Fonz”

Winkler

• Walt Disney
• Magic Johnson
INTERESTING TIDBITS

POTPOURRI
Because many people with dyslexia are right-brained
thinkers, they may be more artistic and creative,
becoming poets, actors, inventors, and artists.
Children with dyslexia use “almost five times as much
brain area as other children while doing a simple
language task” (Silverstein et al., 2001, p. 22).
“In the past, doctors…tried to prevent [children with
disabilities] from being born; they…also…tried to stop
some [people with disabilities] from having children of
their own” (Flynn, 1998, p. 11).
INTERESTING TIDBITS

EMOTIONAL ISSUES
Students with learning disabilities may suffer from
emotional problems/depression, and/or low
self-esteem. This may cause students to withdraw
from social interaction.
These same students may turn to drugs or alcohol for relief
from feelings of low self-worth.
As many as 35% of students with learning disorders,
drop out of High School (Girod, 2001, p. 31).
“Teenagers with dyslexia …[are] more likely to…think about
and to attempt suicide than other young people their age” (Landau, 2004, pp.
48-9).
Understanding Learning and Attention Issues

•Learning and attention issues are more common than many people think,
affecting 1 in 5 children. With supportive policies and increased awareness
among parents, educators and communities, these students can thrive
academically, socially and emotionally.
•Learning and attention issues are brain-based difficulties in reading, writing,
math, organization, focus, listening comprehension, social skills, motor skills
or a combination of these. Learning and attention issues are not the result
of low intelligence, poor vision or hearing, or lack of access to quality
instruction.