Learning disability refers to a range of conditions that affect a person's ability to learn new information, even though the person has average or above-average intelligence.

Official definitions

The National Joint Council on Learning Disabilities (United States) defines it this way:

"Learning Disability" is a generic term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning or mathematical abilities. These disorders are intrinsic to the individual and presumed to be due to Central Nervous System Dysfunction. Even though a learning disability may occur concomitantly with other handicapping conditions (e.g. sensory impairment, mental retardation, social and emotional disturbance) or environmental influences (e.g. cultural differences, insufficient/inappropriate instruction, psychogenic factors) it is not the direct result of those conditions or influences.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (United States) defines a learning disability this way:

. . .[a] disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using spoken or written language, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations.. . .Learning disabilities include such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.

Contrast with other conditions

People with an IQ lower than 70 are usually characterised as being mentally retarded, Mentally deficient, or Cognitively Impaired and are not included under most definitions of learning disabilities, because their learning difficulties are related directly to their low intelligence. In contrast, learning disabled individuals have the potential to learn as much as other people of average intelligence, but something is preventing them from reaching that potential.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is often studied in connection with learning disabilities, but it is not actually included in the standard definitions of learning disabilities. It is true that a person with ADHD struggles with learning, but he can often learn adequately once he or she is successfully treated for the ADHD. A person can have ADHD but not be learning disabled or be learning disabled without having ADHD.

Types of Learning Disabilities

Learning disabilities involve many areas of perception, which include:

• visual or auditory discrimination--perceiving differences in either sights or sounds
• visual or auditory closure--filling in missing parts of sights or sounds
• visual or auditory figure-ground discrimination--focusing on an object and disregarding its background
• visual or auditory memory, either short-term or long-term
• visual or auditory sequencing--putting what is seen or heard in the right order
• auditory association and comprehension--relating what is heard to other things, including definitions of words and meanings of sentences
• spatial perception, including laterality and one's position in space
• temporal perception

Various terms are used to describe particular learning disabilities. A person can have one of them or more than one of them.

Some of them are as follows:

• Speech and language disorders
  • difficulty producing speech sounds (articulation disorder)
  • difficulty putting ideas into spoken form (expressive disorder)
  • difficulty perceiving or understanding what other people say (receptive disorder)
• Dyslexia--the general term for a disability in the area of reading.
  • difficulty in phonetic mapping, where sufferers have difficulty with matching various orthographic representations to specific sounds
  • difficulty with spatial orientation, which is stereotyped in the confusion of the letters <b> and <d>, as well as other pairs. In its severest form, <b> <d> <g> and <q>, all distinguished primarily by orientation in handwriting, look identical to the dyslexic
  • difficulty with sequential ordering, such that a person can see a combination of letters but not perceive them in the correct order
• Dysgraphia--the general term for a disability in the pysical writing process. It is usually linked to problems with visual-motor integration or fine motor skills.
• Dyscalculia--the general term for math related learning disability.

Possible causes

Various theories have been posited for the cause or causes of learning disabilities. They are thought to involve the brain in some fashion. The most common causes are thought to be:

• defects or errors in brain structure
• lack of communication between various parts of the brain
• incorrect quantities of various neurotransmitters, or problems in the brain's use of these transmitters
  • common neurotransmitter problems include insufficient dopamine, improper serotonin regulation, and excessive dopamine reuptake where emitting neurons reabsorb too much dopamine after releasing them to communicate with other neurons (also implicated in depression).

Treatment

Learning disabilities are treated with a variety of methods, some of which compensate for the disabilities and others of which attempt to make improvements in the weak areas. Treatments include:

• Classroom adjustments, such as
  • special seating assignment
  • alternative or modified assignments
  • modified testing procedures
• Special equipment, such as
  • electronic spellers and dictionaries
  • word processors
  • talking calculators
  • books on tape
• Classroom assitants, such as
  • note-takers
  • readers
  • proofreaders
• Special education, which may include the teaching of compensatory techniques, remedial tutoring, or actual strengthening of the child's deficit areas. It can take the form of:

1. prescribed hours in a special class,
2. placement in a special class, or
3. enrollment in a special school for learning disabled students.

External links

• Mental Health Matters: Learning Disorders

• Schwab Learning

• National Institute for Learning Disabilities

• LD Resources

• Hodges Health Career - Care Domains - Model (Designed to support Care/Independent Living)