Learning Disabilities Characteristics

Literacy Issues
 80-90% of all children with learning disabilities have reading problems. Children with
severe reading disabilities have trouble reading single words, deficits matching
sounds with letters, and difficulty quickly naming what they see. Children who have
trouble reading quickly and accurately also have difficulty comprehending what they
read.
Dyslexia
 One of the most common kinds of reading disabilities. Students with dyslexia have
difficulty spelling recognizing words, and decoding words with accuracy and fluency.
People with dyslexia view print differently than others. They need to work harder
than most people to read successfully.
Written-Language Deficits
 Most students with learning disabilities have trouble with spelling, vocabulary,
grammar, and punctuation. Some students have a specific disability with written
language. These students have difficulty planning what they write and they often
write what immediately comes to mind. They often do not recognize ideas or edit
their writing.
Math Underachievement
 Calculation and number reasoning can be difficult across the grades for most
children with the learning difficulties. They often have trouble retrieving math facts
and solving word problems. Sometimes they have difficulty conceptually
understanding what numbers represent.
Weak metacognitive
 It is how people think about their thinking. People with learning disabilities can have
trouble monitoring their thought processes and being aware of how they are
learning. This can cause difficulties in academics.
Poor Social Skills
 Many students with learning difficulties easily get along with teachers and peers.
Other students have poor social skills and may struggle to interpret emotions and
nonverbal expressions. In many situations social ease and peer acceptance is not
caused by the disability, but is rather created by parents, teachers, and peers.
Memory Problems
 Students with learning disabilities can have difficulty with long-term memory,
remembering information like math facts. They also have trouble with short term
 memory, recalling information recently read or heard. Short term memory problems
contribute to learning disabilities in reading, mathematics, and writing
Low Academic Achievement despite adequate Intelligence
 The main trait od students with learning disabilities is having significant deficits in
academic performance despite having an adequate intelligence. Learning disabilities
are not temporary. They stay with children throughout their lives. Equipping children
with tools to effectively learn early on is essential.
Behavioral Problems
 When students have difficulty learning they often act out in class. Students with
learning difficulties are more likely to have behavior and discipline issues. Behaviors
can result from feel frustrated with school.
Attention and Hyperactivity
 Students with learning difficulties often have trouble sustaining attention for
significant periods of time. Having difficulty focusing on tasks, such as homework or
classroom instruction, can pose an obstacle to student learning. Students display
hyperactivity when they have trouble staying seated and move around a lot.

Some of the common characteristics of Learning Disabilities

READING SKILLS
 Poor decoding skills
 Poor reading fluency
 Slow reading rate
 Lack of self-monitoring reading skills
 Poor comprehension and retention
 Difficulty identifying important ideas in context
 Extreme difficulty building ideas and images
 Difficulty integrating new ideas to existing knowledge
 Weak vocabulary skills
 Extreme difficulty understanding words or grammar
 Extreme difficulty focusing attention on the printed marks
 Difficulty controlling eye movements across the page
 Wavy or shimmering pages not attributable to poor vision
 Oral comprehension is noticeably stronger than reading comprehension
 Difficulty recognizing high frequency words

Spelling skills
 Phonological awareness is noticeably stronger than spelling ability
 Frequent spelling errors of high frequency words
 Extreme difficulty with homonyms and regular spelling patterns
 No understanding of common spelling rules
 Inadequate understanding of phonics even with instruction
Written Expression skills
 Poor writing fluency
 Unable to compose complete, grammatical sentences
 Difficulty organizing written information
 Poor handwriting
 Extremely poor alignment
 Inability to take notes or copy information from a book or the board
 Oral expression is noticeably stronger than written expression
 Extremely weak proofreading skills

Oral language Skills

 Inability to hear small differences between sounds, not attributable to hearing loss,
particularly vowel sounds
 Difficulty articulating thoughts or ideas orally
 Difficulty pronouncing words
 Inability to blend sounds together to form words
 Difficulty listening and responding to a series of directions
 Disorganized recall of facts or details

Mathematical Skills
 Poor mathematical fluency
 Difficulty memorizing multiplication tables
 Difficulty identifying multiples and factors
 Poor basic calculation skills
 Difficulty understanding word or application problems
 Poor understanding of mathematical concepts
 Difficulty sorting out irrelevant information
 Lower visual perceptual and visual-spatial ability
 Inability to transfer basic mathematical concepts to solve problems with
unpredictable information
 Inability to use basic facts within more complex calculations

Memory skills
 Extremely weak ability to store and retrieve information efficiently
 Extremely weak ability to hold information for immediate use

Reasoning Skills
 Extremely weak ability to solve problems, particularly when information or
procedure is unfamiliar
 Extreme difficulty recognizing, transforming, or using specific information to reach
general conclusions