Post by Mayleng on Oct 28, 2003 11:48:13 GMT -5
This was posted by another friend of mine on another board and it gives a good summary to help parents starting on the road of learning and identifying Learning Disabilities.
Quote:
There has been some understandable confusion for a host of new parents that have joined in recent weeks. The initial discovery of learning disabilities is hard, confusing, alternately a relief and very painful. Because I've been there, and my sons have had very confusing diagnoses, I thought I'd try to give you all my general perspective on this early discovery period.
First, don't freak out at the different descriptions. So many problems have some similar symptoms. Anxiety is one, because if it freaks us parents out, imagine being the kid with the issues! Not spelling well can be a symptom of a variety of different things, as can bad handwriting. Having trouble focusing can be ADHD, NLD, vision development problems, a number of things. Late reading can be due to languange LD, or it could be a processing disorder or sometimes nonverbal LD. And there are multiple ways of remediating and accommodating all these different issues. More confusing is this: every child is different, with their own set of individual ways of learning, strengths and weaknesses.
This is why the parents who have been around a while on this board first advise you to get a full psycho-educational evaluation, either through the school or privately so that you know what direction to go in.
Dr. Mel Levine does a fabulous job of breaking down all the different learning and neurological functions into understandable parts and describing what they look like in a child. I highly recommend that you do your own research on all this, because as much as we on the board can give you in terms of support and suggestions, we aren't professionals (most of us) and we don't know your child.
That said, my understanding is that included in the different functions are the two sides of the brain, one that controls all verbal, sequential, detailed information gathering, and the other side, that controls visual spatial, 3-D thinking, large theme concepts. motor development and information processing. When one side of the brain is considerably more efficient than the other side, you have either a language/verbal LD or a visual-spatial/nonverbal LD. These can be expressed in a variety of different ways, depending on other factors.
Attentional difficulties, the kind that are regularly improved with medication, come from a different neurological problem area but can make a verbal or nonverbal LD more pronounced.
Processing disorders, which can be auditory, visual or more global, can also add to the difficulties. Some children take in too much sensory information and it overwhelms them, (sensory integration dysfunction) and some can't get it in fast enough (central auditory processing disorders.) Some can't get it out fast enough either orally, (expressive or receptive language disorders) or in writing.
Memory, short term and long term memory problems can also affect the conditions that are already there, can be caused by some of the above problems, like ADHD, and can be remediated or accommodated (strengthened or supported) depending on the kid and the level of difficulty.
Social perception is an ability that can come easily to a child or need to be taught, but it is an important function as well and with variations in abilities come very different presentations of LDs. Because it has a lot to do with visual spatial skills and nonverbal information, low social perception often, but not always accompanies a nonverbal learning disorder. Either a child is innately aware of his or her surroundings and the nuances of social behavior or not, or somewhere in between.
Specific reading disabilities come about because it takes a great many of these functions to read and write modern language. Coordinating the sequential thinking required for reading, with the visual-spatial skills required to turn symbols into sounds and back again, the fine and gross motor skills required to simply write one's name, the memory skills to keep it in mind, the processing ability to keep out the unnecessary information, let in the right info at the right speed, the social perception skills to be feeling comfortable in a school situation and doing the right things at the right time, and the attentional requirements to focus on coordinating all this stuff is really a great deal of work.
And now we are expecting our children to have these skills all in order sometimes by four, when their brains are still growing rapidly and changing and they live in a fast-paced demanding world with busy families.
So, take deep breaths, read what you can, get your child tested, ask lots of questions, and keep notes. You can only go as fast as you can in understanding this stuff, and children are wonderfully resilient and built for learning. Where ever you are in the process, there will be a lot you can do to help your child once you see what the individual problems are and what can be done for them.
As I said, what I've outlined is just my understanding from what I've read, and it's a simplistic overview. I encourage you all to find your own understandings of all the issues and later pass it on to other new parents.
Unquote
Quote:
There has been some understandable confusion for a host of new parents that have joined in recent weeks. The initial discovery of learning disabilities is hard, confusing, alternately a relief and very painful. Because I've been there, and my sons have had very confusing diagnoses, I thought I'd try to give you all my general perspective on this early discovery period.
First, don't freak out at the different descriptions. So many problems have some similar symptoms. Anxiety is one, because if it freaks us parents out, imagine being the kid with the issues! Not spelling well can be a symptom of a variety of different things, as can bad handwriting. Having trouble focusing can be ADHD, NLD, vision development problems, a number of things. Late reading can be due to languange LD, or it could be a processing disorder or sometimes nonverbal LD. And there are multiple ways of remediating and accommodating all these different issues. More confusing is this: every child is different, with their own set of individual ways of learning, strengths and weaknesses.
This is why the parents who have been around a while on this board first advise you to get a full psycho-educational evaluation, either through the school or privately so that you know what direction to go in.
Dr. Mel Levine does a fabulous job of breaking down all the different learning and neurological functions into understandable parts and describing what they look like in a child. I highly recommend that you do your own research on all this, because as much as we on the board can give you in terms of support and suggestions, we aren't professionals (most of us) and we don't know your child.
That said, my understanding is that included in the different functions are the two sides of the brain, one that controls all verbal, sequential, detailed information gathering, and the other side, that controls visual spatial, 3-D thinking, large theme concepts. motor development and information processing. When one side of the brain is considerably more efficient than the other side, you have either a language/verbal LD or a visual-spatial/nonverbal LD. These can be expressed in a variety of different ways, depending on other factors.
Attentional difficulties, the kind that are regularly improved with medication, come from a different neurological problem area but can make a verbal or nonverbal LD more pronounced.
Processing disorders, which can be auditory, visual or more global, can also add to the difficulties. Some children take in too much sensory information and it overwhelms them, (sensory integration dysfunction) and some can't get it in fast enough (central auditory processing disorders.) Some can't get it out fast enough either orally, (expressive or receptive language disorders) or in writing.
Memory, short term and long term memory problems can also affect the conditions that are already there, can be caused by some of the above problems, like ADHD, and can be remediated or accommodated (strengthened or supported) depending on the kid and the level of difficulty.
Social perception is an ability that can come easily to a child or need to be taught, but it is an important function as well and with variations in abilities come very different presentations of LDs. Because it has a lot to do with visual spatial skills and nonverbal information, low social perception often, but not always accompanies a nonverbal learning disorder. Either a child is innately aware of his or her surroundings and the nuances of social behavior or not, or somewhere in between.
Specific reading disabilities come about because it takes a great many of these functions to read and write modern language. Coordinating the sequential thinking required for reading, with the visual-spatial skills required to turn symbols into sounds and back again, the fine and gross motor skills required to simply write one's name, the memory skills to keep it in mind, the processing ability to keep out the unnecessary information, let in the right info at the right speed, the social perception skills to be feeling comfortable in a school situation and doing the right things at the right time, and the attentional requirements to focus on coordinating all this stuff is really a great deal of work.
And now we are expecting our children to have these skills all in order sometimes by four, when their brains are still growing rapidly and changing and they live in a fast-paced demanding world with busy families.
So, take deep breaths, read what you can, get your child tested, ask lots of questions, and keep notes. You can only go as fast as you can in understanding this stuff, and children are wonderfully resilient and built for learning. Where ever you are in the process, there will be a lot you can do to help your child once you see what the individual problems are and what can be done for them.
As I said, what I've outlined is just my understanding from what I've read, and it's a simplistic overview. I encourage you all to find your own understandings of all the issues and later pass it on to other new parents.
Unquote