DEFINITION OF LEARNING DISABILITIES

Learning disabilities is a generic term that refers to a heterogeneous group of

disorders manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition ad use of listening,
speaking, reading, writing, reasoning or mathematical abilities. These disorders are
intrinsic to individual and presumed to be due to central nervous system dysfunction.
Learning disabilities may appear across the life span. Problems in-self regulatory
behavior, social perception and social interaction may exist in learning disabilities but do
not themselves constitute a learning disability.

The group of disorders is heterogeneous, that is, there is not only one but several
disorders that occur at the same time. No two learning disabled person are alike in
mental and behavioral characteristics.

THREE CRITERIAS IN DETERMINING THE PRESENCE OF LEARNING

DISABILITIES

1. Severe discrepancy between the child’s potential and actual achievement.

Learning disabilities is present when mental ability tests and standardized

achievement test results show discrepancy between general mental ability and
achievement in school. There are pieces of evidence of a discrepancy score of two or
greater than two in intellectual ability and achievement in one or more of the following
areas: oral expression, listening comprehension, reading comprehension, written
expression, basic reading skills, mathematics calculation and reasoning.

2. Exclusion or absence of mental retardation, sensory impairment and other

disabilities

Exclusion criterion means that the child has significant problems that cannot be
explained by mental retardation, sensory impairment like low vision, blindness, hearing
impairment, emotional disturbance, or lack of opportunity to learn.

3. Need for special education

Teaching the child with learning disabilities involves strategies that are unique,
uncommon and unusual quality. The strategies supplement the organizational and
instructional procedures used with majority of children in regular schools. This criterion
is meant to keep children who have not had the opportunity to learn from being
classified as learning disabled.
LEARNING AND BEHAVIOR CHARACTERISTICS OF CHILDREN WITH LEARNING
DISABILITIES

1. Reading poses the most difficulty among all the subjects in the curriculum. It may be
recalled that the facets of communication are listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Thus, reading problems are ushered in by deficiencies in language skills especially the
phonological skills. These skills develop the ability to understand the rules of how
various sounds go with certain letters to make up words called grapheme-phoneme
correspondence. The difficulty in breaking words into their component sounds results to
difficulties in reading and spelling.

Dyslexia refers to a disturbance in the ability to learn in general and the ability to
learn to read in particular.

2. Written language poses severe problems in one or more of the following areas:
handwriting, spelling, composition, and writing which is eligible and slow. They write
shorter sentences and stories, they do not use writing strategies spontaneously and
their written work show lack of planning, organizing, drafting and editing.

3. Spoken language poses problems on the mechanical uses of language in syntax or

grammar, semantics or word meanings and phonology or the breakdown of words into
their component sounds and blending individual sounds to compose words.

Developmental Aphasia is a condition characterized by loss of speech functions,

often, but not always due to brain injury.

4. Pragmatics or social uses of language poses problem on the ability to carry on a

conversation. Children with learning disabilities are found to be unable to engage in the
mutual give-and-take in carrying on a conversation.

5. Mathematics problems are recognized as the second to the deficiencies in reading,

language and spelling.

6. These children tend to fail and be retained in a grade level. The level of academic
achievement tends to decrease progressively as the grade level increases. They find
their studies to be more difficult as they go up the grades.

7. Behavior problems remain consistent across grade levels both in the school, in the
community, and at home. The common behavioral problems are inattention, impulsivity
and hyperactivity.

8. In general, social acceptance is low, but some can be popular.

PERCEPTUAL, PERCEPTUAL-MOTOR, AND GENARAL COORDINATION
PROBLEMS

1. Children with learning disabilities exhibit visual and/or auditory perceptual disabilities.
The problem is nit lack of acuity or sharpness in vision or audition in responding to
visual and auditory perceptual stimulation.

2. They have difficulty with physical activities that involve gross and fine motor skills.
Thus, they tend to drop things, as though they are “all thumbs” or have two left feet.

3. They have problems with attention and hyperactivity

MEMORY, COGNITIVE, AND METACOGNITIVE

Problems in memory, cognitive and metacognitive areas are related. If there is a

problem in memory then there are also problems in understanding or cognition. The
problems show in difficulties in remembering assignments and appointments.

Attention deficits. Selective attention or the ability to focus on the relevant details
of the lesson is the first requirement for learning to take place. Children who cannot pay
attention focus on the teaching episode for a particular subject. The deficit in attention
results to inefficient learning or no learning at all.

Poor memory. Poor ability to store and retrieve information or previous learning is
very evident among children with learning disabilities. They find difficulty in
remembering mathematics facts, spelling, words, vocabulary meaning, content
knowledge and information.