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Types of Learning Disabilities PDF Print E-mail

Learning Disabilities Can be Grouped into these main categories:

  • visual (impaired visual perception, poor visual memory, reversals, problems with visual tracking, figure-ground discrimination problems)
  • auditory (impairment of auditory perception, poor auditory sequencing, poor listening skills, poor auditoy memory, speech problems)
  • motor (problems with hand-eye coordination, small muscle control difficulties, clumsiness)
  • organizational (space, ideas, time)
  • and conceptual (difficulty in judgine non-verbal language, difficulty in anticpating the future, poor social skills, unable to predict cause and effect)

LDs take so many forms, and vary in intensity so much, that it is not simple to list them all, but there are some broad categories which they all fall into:

LDs that Affect Academics: Difficulties with spelling, reading, listening, focussing, remembering and writing can all have an impact on all areas of school-subjects.

LDs that affect Organization and Focus: A series of executive functions allow us to do things like plan, predict, organize and focus. LDs that interfere with these things can interfere with how we manage our lives and physical space. ADHD, which does affect executive functions, is coming to be seen as an LD because of this.

LDs that Affect Social Life: We learn how to be socially successful, even though we don't notice that we're learning. So LDs that make it difficult to interpret facial expressions, body language, or tones of voice can have a real impact on a person's social life.

LDs that affect Physical Interaction With the World: Again, without knowing, we are constantly receiving information about our surroundings and about our bodies: our balance, coordination and movement are all based on this information. So an LD that interferes with how we understand that information can cause a person to be uncoordinated or “clumsy.”

Another way of categorizing LDs is by the specific area of processing involved – getting information into the brain (INPUT), making sense of this information (INTEGRATION), storing and later retrieving this information (MEMORY) or getting this information back out (OUTPUT).

Select this link to read "The Types of Learning Disabilities", an article from LDAA.


Essentially, however, it is most useful to know that LDs can impact on anything we learn – and we learn most of what we know. The good news is that since LDs affect certain specific modes of learning, other modes can always be used to compensate.

Select this link for LDAO's "Top Ten Myths about Learning Disabilities"

 
Causes PDF Print E-mail

Learning Disabilities are NOT cased by:

  • cultural or language differences
  • poor teachers/parenting
  • socio-economic status
  • lack of motivation/laziness
 
Learning Disabilities PDF Print E-mail
What Are Learning Disabilities?
Definitions and Types

Definitions

LDs – which is short for learning disabilities – affect one or more of the ways that a person takes in, stores, or uses information. LDs come in many forms and affect people with varying levels of severity. Between 5 and 10 percent of Canadians have LDs.

LDs are a life-long condition – they do not go away – but can be coped with successfully by using areas of strength to compensate and accommodations such as technology.

A quick example: a student could have an LD that affected her reading-and-understanding. She knows how to read, but the process of decoding the words and sentences takes so much effort that she comprehends little of what she's read. This student has learned that this is the case, and now records lectures to listen to later, and listens to audio-books on tape and CD. She has compensated by using her strong listening skills.

LDs and their effects are different from person to person, so a person's pattern of learning abilities need to be understood in order to find good, effective strategies for compensation.

Select this link to read the LDAO's "Working Description and Official Definition of Learning Disabilities"
 
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