Learning Disability

When we call a parent in for the first time and recommend testing their child to find out if he or she has a learning disability we are almost always asked what a learning disability is. That can be so hard to explain to someone who is not in education because the term learning disability can mean so many things.

Learning disability is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as:

Any of various conditions that interfere with an individual’s ability to learn and so result in impaired functioning in language, reasoning, or academic skills and that are thought to be caused by difficulties in processing and integrating information.

That is a great clinical definition but it has a tendency to scare a lot of parents. They hear impaired and automatically jump to the worse possible scenario and think their child won’t be able to graduate from school, go to law school, or run the family business. Not all of them say it but you can almost always see the moment of fear in their eyes when you use the word impaired.

So that’s when I give them my definition.

 
• A learning disability just means that you learn differently. It means that you need a little extra help and that you see the world around you in a unique way. It doesn’t mean you can’t learn. A learning disability has nothing to do with how intelligent you are it has to do with how your brain processes information.

Once a child is diagnosed with a specific learning disability then we can go back to the parent and give a more exact definition for their child’s learning disability. With a diagnosis in hand a learning disability can actually benefit the child. Whereas previously he or she did not have the tools to succeed in school the diagnosis of a learning disability tells teachers how to help the student.

As a parent what has been your experience with your childs learning disability? Were you afraid when you first found out about the learning disability? Have you seen an improvement in school since your child was diagnosed?