Study Coach: What is a Learning Disability?
ANSWER: A Learning Disability can be defined as a neurological disorder, it affects how a person will communicate, understand information and learn new skills. A Learning Disability could create difficulties in learning mathematical skills, learning to write, learning to read, the disability will subsequently pose difficulties for people to develop these skills in education. The severity of the learning disability will differ, meaning that some people might suffer with the learning disability severely whilst others only have a mild trait.
Dyslexia and Dyspraxia are examples of a Learning Disability. Learning Disability being a neurological disorder therefore results from how a person’s brain is functioning. A person identified with a Learning Disability such as Dyslexia might experience difficulties in organising their work, have difficulties reading, reasoning, spelling, writing and recalling information. A child with dyslexia could experience difficulties understanding the relationship between words, letters and sounds, not recognising letters, have difficulties understanding ideas and words and have difficulties reading fluently and reading at speed.
Down’s syndrome is associated with learning disability and so is Autism. People with autism-related disorders may demonstrate difficulties with making eye-contact, communicating, learning basic skills. ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) can become a barrier to learning but ADHD is not always linked to a Learning Disability. The following three terms are often used interchangeably: learning difficulty, learning disability, barriers to learning. We therefore need to understand the three concepts to realise that a learning difficulty refers to a situation that can hinder a person from learning, for example, a housing issue or other domestic situation could impact and create a difficulty for a child to learn.
The domestic situation creating a learning difficulty can therefore be also referred to as a barrier to learning. Financial issues, language issues, cultural differences, lack of educational resources can all create a learning difficulty/barriers to learning. Strategies to tackle a learning difficulty can be implemented. For example, in order to address the problem of language creating a learning difficulty for some learners, the educational institution could focus more on teaching groups of learners more vocabulary and making use of learning assistants, to help the specific group of learners.
The question of what is a Learning Disability is related to a wide range of issues, Study Coach UK will focus on some of the disorders mentioned above in future Questions and Answers.
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