Helping your child cope with learning disability

Center of Arizonahttp://www.cnscenteraz.com/

What do Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, Alexander Graham Bell, Pablo Picasso, Magic Johnson, Tom Cruise, Cher and Whoopi Goldberg have in common? Aside from the fact that they all have been fairly successful in their respective fields, all of them have been handicapped by learning disorder while they were growing up.

A learning disorder is an umbrella term for a range of learning problems which includes dyslexia (reading disabilities), dyscalculia (difficulties in learning math), dysgraphia (difficulties in writing), dyspraxia (difficulties in learning motor skills, like Daniel Radcliffe who still find it hard to tie his own shoelaces), aphasia/dysphasia (difficulty in understanding and/or communicating with spoken language), along with visual or auditory processing disorders.

People with learning problems aren't necessarily dumb, lazy or lacking in motivation. It's just that their brains appear to have been wired differently, affecting how they receive and process information. How this came about is still not very well understood. However, learning difficulties due to neurological impairment have been traced to heredity as well as to serious illness or head injuries following birth, malnutrition, fetal exposure to inordinate amounts of drugs or alcohol in the mother's bloodstream, premature birth, oxygen deprivation during pregnancy, among other physical factors. A learning disability, unlike a very low IQ, is not an intellectual disability.

Because of their condition, children with learning disabilities have this tendency to grow up with low-esteem. Fortunately, a learning impairment is often a self-compensating disorder. A dysfunction in one part of the brain may trigger other areas of the brain to compensate. Also, an individual who is aware of, say his reading limitations, may deliberately make up for his poor academic performance by doing his best to excel in say sports or the arts. Even academically, a dyslexic may try to make up for his deficiency by being good in other subjects like math or science.

A learning disability is a biological condition, having to do with the neural connections in the brain. And because it is often self-compensatory, its early detection during childhood is critical. Unless addressed through counseling, special education classes and other forms of proper psychiatric intervention, a learning-disabled child may try to compensate for his condition in a negative way. Doing poorly in school, he may on his own try to do better out of school. If not guided, he might hang out with gangs, do drugs, become a bully. If you suspect your child has difficulties learning, don't hesitate to have him diagnosed. The sooner you act now, the better his chances are at having a good shot at a happy life later.