Learning disabilities lead to pronounced difficulties in two main aspects of learning:
- Acquisition of basic learning skills (e.g., reading, writing, arithmetic, and foreign languages)
- Use of age-appropriate learning skills, such as reading long passages. At times, students who have acquired the basic learning skills fail to use them effectively, according to their grade-level. For example, when students come to secondary school (middle/junior high and high school), where they are required to read long and complicated passages, students with learning disabilities are likely to regress and have difficulty with reading skills (e.g., slow reading, difficulty in deciphering long and complicated words, and difficulties in reading comprehension).
The difficulty in acquisition and use of basic learning skills can appear in any area of language use - attention, speech, reading and writing, mathematics, and foreign language; however, they usually affect the three basic areas of acquired skills (reading, writing, and arithmetic).
Reading Disabilities - Dyslexia
Reading disabilities lead to difficulties in acquisition of age-appropriate reading skills, slow reading, disordering of letters and words, and difficulties in reading comprehension. Similarly, later on, there are difficulties in reading and comprehending long passages.
A portion of reading disabilities are caused by difficulties in the area of language, e.g., difficulty in phonological awareness (awareness of the basic sound units which comprise the language), difficulty in object-naming, difficulty in the area of sentence structure. Noticeable delay and disabilities in language development are predictors, at times, of the development of dyslexia.
Other difficulties in reading are caused by a difficulty in processing visual information, e.g., identifying direction differences and distinguishing between different shapes, and more.
Writing Disabilities - Dysgraphia
Signs of writing disabilities found in students are too-much or too-little pressure on the writing utensil, slow writing, extensive writing errors, improper phrasing of sentences, avoidance of writing or use of short answers in order to avoid longer writing. The level of content expressed in writing is low many times as a result of the student's great investment of energy in the technical aspects of writing, which distracts the student from focusing on the content of what is being written.
To a certain extent, these difficulties are often predicated by difficulty in fine motor movements (e.g., difficulty holding a pencil), language difficulties (e.g., difficulty in differentiating between the sounds of a language and difficulty connecting between a sound and its letter), difficulty in visual perception (e.g., difficulty discerning between letters), and difficulty in hand-eye coordination.
Math Disabilities - Dyscalculia
These disabilities are seen in students who have difficulty acquiring math skills. In general, these difficulties are revealed already at a young age. They are observed in the student's difficulty in understanding central ideas in math and in performing mathematical functions. Some of the students have a difficulty in quantitative differentiation (e.g., comparing amounts or an ability to estimate amounts) and in understanding the concept of continuation (e.g., a series of numbers or order of operations). Similarly, there are students whose difficulty is language based leading to an inability to learn mathematical terms or to convert word problems into mathematical equations.
In addition to the three main learning disabilities (i.e., dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia), there are also disabilities in the processing of information, and other disorders that are likely to impair learning (e.g., attention deficit disorder (ADD), disorder in language development (dysphasia), difficulty in memorization, difficulty in fine and gross motor skills, and difficulties in social skills).
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