109 Other Helpful Information on Learning Disabilities (87/161) -- Abnormal Psychology

109 Other Helpful Information on Learning Disabilities A really good website for parents who have a child with learning disabilities or who might be diagnosed with some sort of adult learning disability is WETA’s website, http://www.ldonline.org/. This website lists many things that parents can do for their children if they are diagnosed with a learning disability and help them understand what a learning disability actually is. Some facts the WETA gives on learning disabilites are as follows (2010): - about 15% of the US population has been diagnosed with some type of learning disability - the most common type of learning disability is a reading disorder - a genetic link has been discovered in learning disabilites - individuals who have been diagnosed with autism, mental retardation, deafness, blindness, or behavioral disorders do not neccessiarily have a learning disability - individuals who have been diagnosed with ADHD do not always have a learning disability; however, they are often comorbid with one another According to Horowitz, we know that there are some variations in brain development that are related to some reading disabilites. Using brain imaging tools, we can see that there are a number of regions and areas in the brain associated with certain skills that support the development of reading. Some learning disabilities can be traced back to prenatal dispositions such as fetal alcohol and cocaine exposure and possible maternal cigerette smoking. While Horowitz claims there is a strong genetic component in families, he also claims that learning disabilites can be influenced by environmental factors (2007). Parents are usually the first to notice that their child may have some sort of learning disability. Parents should be aware of the following list that describes some common signs that a child may have a learning disability. Parents should remember that children may exhibit some symptoms of a learning deficiency occasionally, which is normal. Most children struggle with one concept or another at any given time, but a specific criteria must be met in order for the classification of a learning disability to be made. According to WETA (2010), a parent should seek assistance if their child exhibits several of these symptoms over a long period of time: - Preschool aged children - the child learns to speak later than normal. - the child’s fine motor skills are be slow to develop - the child has difficulty in the pronunciation of words - the child has a slow vocabulary growth and often has a difficult time finding the right words - the child shows difficulty in learning numbers, patterns, days of the week, and the alphabet - the child is extremely restless - the child becomes easily distracted - the child shows difficulties when interacting with peers - the child has trouble following directions or even a routine that is set in place - School-aged children, grades Pre-K through 4 - the child shows difficulty connecting letters to their sounds