Learning disability (sometimes called a learning disorder or learning difficulty), is a classification including several disorders in which a person has difficulty learning in a typical manner, usually caused by an unknown factor or factors. The unknown factor is the disorder that affects the brain’s ability to receive and process information. This disorder can make it problematic for a person to learn as quickly or in the same way as someone who is not affected by a learning disability. People with a learning disability have trouble performing specific types of skills or completing tasks if left to figure things out by themselves or if taught in conventional ways.
Some forms of learning disability are incurable. However, with appropriate cognitive/academic interventions, many can be overcome. Individuals with learning disabilities can face unique challenges that are often pervasive throughout the lifespan. Depending on the type and severity of the disability, interventions may be used to help the individual learn strategies that will foster future success. Some interventions can be quite simplistic, while others are intricate and complex. Teachers and parents will be a part of the intervention in terms of how they aid the individual in successfully completing different tasks. School psychologists quite often help to design the intervention, and coordinate the execution of the intervention with teachers and parents. Social support can be a crucial component for students with learning disabilities in the school system, and should not be overlooked in the intervention plan. With the right support and intervention, people with learning disabilities can succeed in school and go on to be successful later in life.
Definitions
In the 1980s, the National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD) defines the term learning disability as:
a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning or mathematical abilities. These disorders are intrinsic to the individual and presumed to be due to Central Nervous System Dysfunction. Even though a learning disability may occur concomitantly with other handicapping conditions (e.g. sensory impairment, mental retardation, social and emotional disturbance) or environmental influences (e.g. cultural differences, insufficient/inappropriate instruction, psychogenic factors) it is not the direct result of those conditions or influences.
The NJCLD used the term to indicate a discrepancy between a child’s apparent capacity to learn and his or her level of achievement.
The 2002 LD Roundtable produced the following definition:
“Concept of LD: Strong converging evidence supports the validity of the concept of specific learning disabilities (SLD). This evidence is particularly impressive because it converges across different indicators and methodologies. The central concept of SLD involves disorders of learning and cognition that are intrinsic to the individual. SLD are specific in the sense that these disorders each significantly affect a relatively narrow range of academic and performance outcomes. SLD may occur in combination with other disabling conditions, but they are not due primarily to other conditions, such as mental retardation, behavioral disturbance, lack of opportunities to learn, or primary sensory deficits.”
The term “learning disability” does not exist in DSM-IV, but it has been proposed that it be added to DSM-5, and incorporate the conditions learning disorder not otherwise specified and disorder of written expression.
Types of learning disabilities
Learning disabilities can be categorized either by the type of information processing that is affected or by the specific difficulties caused by a processing deficit.
By stage of information processing
Learning disabilities fall into broad categories based on the four stages of information processing used in learning: input, integration, storage, and output.
Input: This is the information perceived through the senses, such as visual and auditory perception. Difficulties with visual perception can cause problems with recognizing the shape, position and size of items seen. There can be problems with sequencing, which can relate to deficits with processing time intervals or temporal perception. Difficulties with auditory perception can make it difficult to screen out competing sounds in order to focus on one of them, such as the sound of the teacher’s voice. Some children appear to be unable to process tactile input. For example, they may seem insensitive to pain or dislike being touched.
Integration: This is the stage during which perceived input is interpreted, categorized, placed in a sequence, or related to previous learning. Students with problems in these areas may be unable to tell a story in the correct sequence, unable to memorize sequences of information such as the days of the week, able to understand a new concept but be unable to generalize it to other areas of learning, or able to learn facts but be unable to put the facts together to see the “big picture.” A poor vocabulary may contribute to problems with comprehension.
Storage: Problems with memory can occur with short-term or working memory, or with long-term memory. Most memory difficulties occur in the area of short-term memory, which can make it difficult to learn new material without many more repetitions than is usual. Difficulties with visual memory can impede learning to spell.
Output: Information comes out of the brain either through words, that is, language output, or through muscle activity, such as gesturing, writing or drawing. Difficulties with language output can create problems with spoken language, for example, answering a question on demand, in which one must retrieve information from storage, organize our thoughts, and put the thoughts into words before we speak. It can also cause trouble with written language for the same reasons. Difficulties with motor abilities can cause problems with gross and fine motor skills. People with gross motor difficulties may be clumsy, that is, they may be prone to stumbling, falling, or bumping into things. They may also have trouble running, climbing, or learning to ride a bicycle. People with fine motor difficulties may have trouble buttoning shirts, tying shoelaces, or with handwriting.
By function impaired
Deficits in any area of information processing can manifest in a variety of specific learning disabilities. It is possible for an individual to have more than one of these difficulties. This is referred to as comorbidity or co-occurrence of learning disabilities. In the UK, the term dual diagnosis is often used to refer to co-occurrence of learning difficulties.
Reading disorder (ICD-10 and DSM-IV codes: F81.0/315.00)
The most common learning disability. Of all students with specific learning disabilities, 70%-80% have deficits in reading. The term “Developmental Dyslexia” is often used as a synonym for reading disability; however, many researchers assert that there are different types of reading disabilities, of which dyslexia is one. A reading disability can affect any part of the reading process, including difficulty with accurate or fluent word recognition, or both, word decoding, reading rate, prosody (oral reading with expression), and reading comprehension. Before the term “dyslexia” came to prominence, this learning disability used to be known as “word blindness.”
Common indicators of reading disability include difficulty with phonemic awareness—the ability to break up words into their component sounds, and difficulty with matching letter combinations to specific sounds (sound-symbol correspondence).
Writing disorder (ICD-10 and DSM-IV codes F81.1/315.2)
Speech and language disorders can also be called Dysphasia/Aphasia (coded F80.0-F80.2/315.31 in ICD-10 and DSM-IV).
Impaired written language ability may include impairments in handwriting, spelling, organization of ideas, and composition. The term “dysgraphia” is often used as an overarching term for all disorders of written expression. Others, such as the International Dyslexia Association, use the term “dysgraphia” exclusively to refer to difficulties with handwriting.
Math disability (ICD-10 and DSM-IV codes F81.2-3/315.1)
Sometimes called dyscalculia, a math disability can cause such difficulties as learning math concepts (such as quantity, place value, and time), difficulty memorizing math facts, difficulty organizing numbers, and understanding how problems are organized on the page. Dyscalculics are often referred to as having poor “number sense”.
Non ICD-10/DSM
- Nonverbal learning disability: Nonverbal learning disabilities often manifest in motor clumsiness, poor visual-spatial skills, problematic social relationships, difficulty with math, and poor organizational skills. These individuals often have specific strengths in the verbal domains, including early speech, large vocabulary, early reading and spelling skills, excellent rote-memory and auditory retention, and eloquent self-expression.
- Disorders of speaking and listening: Difficulties that often co-occur with learning disabilities include difficulty with memory, social skills and executive functions (such as organizational skills and time management).
- Auditory processing disorder: Difficulties processing auditory information include difficulty comprehending more than one task at a time and a relatively stronger ability to learn visually.
Diagnosis
IQ-Achievement Discrepancy
Learning disabilities are often identified by school psychologists, clinical psychologists, and neuropsychologists through a combination of intelligence testing, academic achievement testing, classroom performance, and social interaction and aptitude. Other areas of assessment may include perception, cognition, memory, attention, and language abilities. The resulting information is used to determine whether a child’s academic performance is commensurate with his or her cognitive ability. If a child’s cognitive ability is much higher than his or her academic performance, the student is often diagnosed with a learning disability. The DSM-IV and many school systems and government programs diagnose learning disabilities in this way (DSM-IV uses the term “disorder” rather than “disability”.)
Although the discrepancy model has dominated the school system for many years, there has been substantial criticism of this approach among researchers. Recent research has provided little evidence that a discrepancy between formally measured IQ and achievement is a clear indicator of LD. Furthermore, diagnosing on the basis of a discrepancy does not predict the effectiveness of treatment. Low academic achievers who do not have a discrepancy with IQ (i.e. their IQ scores are also low) appear to benefit from treatment just as much as low academic achievers who do have a discrepancy with IQ (i.e. their IQ scores are higher than their academic performance would suggest).
Response to Intervention (RTI)
Much current research has focused on a treatment-oriented diagnostic process known as response to intervention (RTI). Researcher recommendations for implementing such a model include early screening for all students, placing those students who are having difficulty into research-based early intervention programs, rather than waiting until they meet diagnostic criteria. Their performance can be closely monitored to determine whether increasingly intense intervention results in adequate progress. Those who respond will not require further intervention. Those who do not respond adequately to regular classroom instruction (often called “Tier 1 instruction”) and a more intensive intervention (often called “Tier 2” intervention) are considered “nonresponders.” These students can then be referred for further assistance through special education, in which case they are often identified with a learning disability. Some models of RTI include a third tier of intervention before a child is identified as having a learning disability.
A primary benefit of such a model is that it would not be necessary to wait for a child to be sufficiently far behind to qualify for assistance. This may enable more children to receive assistance before experiencing significant failure, which may in turn result in fewer children who need intensive and expensive special education services. In the United States, the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act permitted states and school districts to use RTI as a method of identifying students with learning disabilities. RTI is now the primary means of identification of learning disabilities in Florida.
The process does not take into account children’s individual neuropsychological factors such as phonological awareness and memory, that can help design instruction. Second, RTI by design takes considerably longer than established techniques, often many months to find an appropriate tier of intervention. Third, it requires a strong intervention program before students can be identified with a learning disability. Lastly, RTI is considered a regular education initiative and is not driven by psychologists, reading specialists, or special educators.
Assessment
Many normed assessments can be used in evaluating skills in the primary academic domains: reading, including word recognition, fluency, and comprehension; mathematics, including computation and problem solving; and written expression, including handwriting, spelling and composition.
The most commonly used comprehensive achievement tests include the Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ III), Weschler Individual Achievement Test II (WIAT II), the Wide Range Achievement Test III (WRAT III), and the Stanford Achievement Test–10th edition. These tests include measures of many academic domains that are reliable in identifying areas of difficulty.
In the reading domain, there are also specialized tests that can be used to obtain details about specific reading deficits. Assessments that measure multiple domains of reading include Gray’s Diagnostic Reading Tests–2nd edition (GDRT II) and the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Assessment. Assessments that measure reading subskills include the Gray Oral Reading Test IV – Fourth Edition (GORT IV), Gray Silent Reading Test, Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP), Tests of Oral Reading and Comprehension Skills (TORCS), Test of Reading Comprehension 3 (TORC-3), Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE), and the Test of Reading Fluency. A more comprehensive list of reading assessments may be obtained from the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory.
The purpose of assessment is to determine what is needed for intervention, which also requires consideration of contextual variables and whether there are comorbid disorders that must also be identified and treated, such as behavioural issues or language delays.
Treatment and intervention
Interventions include:
Mastery model:
- Learners work at their own level of mastery.
- Practice
- Gain fundamental skills before moving onto the next level
Note: this approach is most likely to be used with adult learners or outside the mainstream school system.
Direct Instruction:
- Highly structured, intensive instruction
- Emphasizes carefully planned lessons for small learning increments
- Scripted lesson plans
- Rapid-paced interaction between teacher and students
- Correcting mistakes immediately
- Achievement-based grouping
- Frequent progress assessments
Classroom adjustments:
- Special seating assignments
- Alternative or modified assignments
- Modified testing procedures
- Quiet environment
Special equipment:
- Word processors with spell checkers and dictionaries
- Text-to-speech and speech-to-text programs
- Talking calculators
- Books on tape
- Computer-based activities such as the hundreds of free games linked to the Learning Disability Directory
Classroom assistants:
- Note-takers
- Readers
- Proofreaders
- Scribes
Special Education:
- Prescribed hours in a resource room
- Placement in a resource room
- Enrollment in a special school for learning disabled students
- Individual Education Plan (IEP)
- Educational therapy
Sternberg has argued that early remediation can greatly reduce the number of children meeting diagnostic criteria for learning disabilities. He has also suggested that the focus on learning disabilities and the provision of accommodations in school fails to acknowledge that people have a range of strengths and weaknesses, and places undue emphasis on academic success by insisting that people should receive additional support in this arena but not in music or sports. Other research has pinpointed the use of resource rooms as an important—yet often politicized component of educating students with learning disabilities.
Causes and risk factors
The causes for learning disabilities are not well understood, and sometimes there is no apparent cause for a learning disability. However, some causes of neurological impairments include:
- Heredity – Learning disabilities often run in the family.
- Problems during pregnancy and birth – Learning disabilities can result from anomalies in the developing brain, illness or injury, fetal exposure to alcohol or drugs, low birth weight, oxygen deprivation, or by premature or prolonged labor.
- Accidents after birth – Learning disabilities can also be caused by head injuries, malnutrition, or by toxic exposure (such as heavy metals or pesticides).
Impact on affected individuals
Neuropsychological differences can impact the accurate perception of social cues with peers. A diagnosis of a learning disability can be potentially devastating to an individual and their family. Both the individual and their family will need to learn methods of coping with the effects of the disorder; they will also need to learn how to cope with the disorder emotionally. Stress related to the disorder can accumulate, making the coping process difficult. Stigmas that friends/family/peers have about the learning disorder can also contribute to the stress level the individual feels. Learning disabilities are often present throughout the lifespan, so learning appropriate and effective methods of coping are essential to successful management of the disorder.
Social Correlates of Learning Disabilities
Learning Disability as a Social Construction
Learning disability theory is founded in a medical model, in that disability is perceived as an individual deficit that is biological in origin. Researchers working within a social model of disability assert that there are social or structural causes of disability and/or the assignation of the label of disability, and even that disability is entirely socially constructed. Since the turn of the 19th century, education in the United States has been geared toward producing citizens who can effectively contribute to a capitalistic society, with a cultural premium on efficiency and science. More agrarian cultures, for example, don’t even use learning ability as a measure of adult adequacy, whereas learning disabilities are prevalent in Western capitalistic societies because of the high value placed on speed, literacy, and numeracy in both the labor force and school system. The notion of learning disabilities has been described as evidence of America’s individualistic obsession with self-reliance. In the bigger picture, these points demonstrate how the label of disability is socially constructed and represents a lack of fit between Western conceptions of educational institutions and proper students.
Disproportionality in the U.S.
One of the most clear indications of the social roots of learning disabilities is the disproportionate identification of racial and ethnic minorities and students who have low socioeconomic status. While some attribute the disproportionate identification of racial/ethnic minorities to racist practices or cultural misunderstanding, others have argued that racial/ethnic minorities are overidentified because of their lower average SES. Similarities were noted between the behaviors of “brain-injured” and lower class students as early as the 1960s. The distinction between race/ethnicity and SES is important to the extent that these considerations contribute to the provision of services to children in need. While many studies have considered only one characteristic of the student at a time, or used district- or school-level data to examine this issue, more recent studies have used large national student-level datasets and sophisticated methodology to find that the disproportionate identification of African American students with learning disabilities can be attributed to their average lower SES, while the disproportionate identification of Latino youth seems to be attributable to difficulties in distinguishing between linguistic proficiency and learning ability. Although the contributing factors are complicated and interrelated, it is possible to discern which factors really drive disproportionate identification by considering a multitude of student characteristics simultaneously. For instance, if high SES minorities have rates of identification that are similar to the rates among high SES whites, and low SES minorities have rates of identification that are similar to the rates among low SES whites, we can know that the seemingly higher rates of identification among minorities result from their greater likelihood to have low SES. Summarily, because the risk of identification for white students who have low SES is similar to that of black students who have low SES, future research and policy reform should focus on identifying the shared qualities or experiences of low SES youth that lead to their disproportionate identification, rather than focusing exclusively on racial/ethnic minorities. It remains to be determined why lower SES youth are at higher risk of incidence, or possibly just of identification, with learning disabilities.
Other Social Connections
Society both has an impact upon, and is impacted by, individuals with learning disabilities. Significant factors in this relationship include poverty (with its concomitant reliance on welfare/public assistance), gender, and crime/imprisonment.
Welfare/Public assistance relating to educational development
A 36 month study conducted by Taylor and Barusch included 284 welfare recipients, who were frequently interviewed, called, and visited with in their homes. In this study the average age was 34 and 97% of the participants were female. Of the welfare participants 22.9% were learning disabled and 32% had no high school diploma or GED. Findings from this study imply that long term learning disabled welfare recipients will not be able to support their family through employment.
A study conducted by Margai and Henry found that the laws of identifying special education children have been revised within the past years. Learning disabled children in public schools now make up 6% of all kids.
High risk neighborhoods and poor living conditions add to the factor of being more vulnerable to having a learning disability. A study was conducted exploring the areas of pollution and socioeconomic factors related to having a higher risk of a learning disability. Margai and Henry used primary data and analyzed clusters of people in a distinct part of a community near a toxic waste place, living in poor neighborhoods and living in poverty). The results confirmed that a majority of the people with a learning disability came from some socio-economic indicator such as poverty, subdivided housing, and lower adult educational attainment. Individuals with a learning disability will rely more heavily on public assistance/welfare than individuals who do not because of their lack of knowledge.
Gender issues
Researchers believe that there are more boys in special education programs compared to girls. Coutinho and Oswald found that data was collected from the U.S. office of Civil Rights to view the underrepresentation of females in special education. Oswald found that 73% of learning disabled individuals in special education programs were boys.
However, the ratio of boys to girls (having a learning disability) is equal. In dealing with learning disabilities no significant gender differences were found in a study of more than 400 children. Bandian found that if identified by research criteria there were no differences in gender, but if learning disabilities were identified by general education teachers and/or special education teachers, there was twice as many boys identified compared to girls. Alongside that, there was another statement said by Bandian that supported the claim stated above “boys were twice as like[ly] to be identified by teachers as in need of a learning disability programs [compared to girls].”
In a study 266 youths between the ages of 12-18 were voluntarily interviewed with 74 structured questions in a small classroom, question structure was based on “special education, juvenile justice, and child and adolescent development literature,” and then categorized into three parts: personal, home, and school. Based on the information the individuals provided to the interviewers the juvenile delinquents were put into a category, special education, or non-special education.
Zabel and Nigro stated that “girls are less often viewed as disruptive and (as having) disturbing behavior patterns that often lead to special education.” In contrast to that Zabel and Nigro also found that the “gender pattern was reversed for LD classification, with nearly 78.6% of females who had been in special education” categorized as having a learning disability.
Crime and prison population
Individuals in a detention facility are more likely to have a learning disability, receive poor grades, and repeat a grade. Zabel and Nigro conducted a study with 266 youths (currently in a detention facility), with the youths ages ranging from 12-18. The individuals were voluntarily interviewed with 74 structured questions. Based on the information provided from the individuals, the individuals were categorized into two groups, special education or non-special education. Zabel and Nigro stated “a majority of participants had received failing grades, and many had repeated at least one grade.” The researchers also found that 88.6% of the youth had been suspended, and those in the SpEd group were more likely than those in the non-SpEd group to report their first instance of trouble in elementary school. This information provided relates to the factor of when most learning disabled individuals are identified is in elementary school thus proving that it would make sense that the individuals in the SpEd group had their first instance of trouble in elementary school and it is hard for LD individuals to complete the education system, thus resulting in having to rely on welfare and public assistance.
Another statistic (calculated from the study stated above) found by Zabel and Nigro was that 37.1% had been involved with special education, and classified having EBD and/or LD. Zabel also found that those individuals with a learning disability were at a higher risk that those with no special education experience (in the violent inmates, 17 of 30 were LD, and in the nonviolent, 13 of 30 were LD).
Individuals in detention facilities may have a learning disability and more specifically have dyslexia (severe difficulty in recognizing and understanding written language, leading to spelling and writing problems). Gretchell, Pabreja, Neeld, and Carrio conducted a study that compared the difference of children with dyslexia and without. Twenty six individuals were dyslexic and 23 individuals were not. Individuals were tested with the Test of Gross Motor Development and Movement Assessment Battery for Children. Individuals with dyslexia performed significantly lower than the control group (individuals who aren’t dyslexic).
Youth in a detention facility are more likely to have a special education problem, such as a learning disability, than not. Zabel and Nigro found in their study that
“about one half of SpEd participants and nearly 20% of the total sample reported their classification as learning disabilities.”
LD individuals make up a large portion of individuals in a detention facility which may have been a result from the LD individual not learning at a significant pace in the education system and also potentially not completing the education system. Zabel and Nigro’s study was made up of 266 youth between the ages of 12-18 who were currently in a detention facility.
Contrast with other conditions
People with an IQ lower than 70 are usually characterized as having mental retardation (MR), mental deficiency, or cognitive impairment and are not included under most definitions of learning disabilities, because their learning difficulties are considered to be related directly to their low IQ scores.
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is often studied in connection with learning disabilities, but it is not actually included in the standard definitions of learning disabilities. An individual with ADHD may struggle with learning, but he or she can often learn adequately once successfully treated for the ADHD. A person can have ADHD but not learning disabilities or have learning disabilities without having ADHD. The conditions can co-occur.
Some research is beginning to make a case for ADHD being included in the definition of LDs, since it is being shown to have a strong impact on “executive functions” required for learning. This has not as yet affected any official definitions.
Advocacy of the concept of learning disabilities
Rick Lavoie is an advocate, author, special education teacher, and writer of learning disabilities. He started a school in Massachusetts specifically targeted towards learning disabled children. Rick Lavoie has written several books on the subject of learning disabilities and their impact on children. The F.A.T. City Project (1989) was a documentary that created a mock environment where everyday people could experience the Frustration, Anxiety, and Tension of being a learning disabled child.
United States and Canada
In the United States and Canada, the terms learning disability and learning disorder (LD) refer to a group of disorders that affect a broad range of academic and functional skills including the ability to speak, listen, read, write, spell, reason, organize information, and do math. A person’s IQ must be average or above to have a learning disability or learning disorder.
USA Legislation related to learning difficulties
The Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act 1973 was taken in effect in May 1977, this American legislation guarantees certain rights to people with disabilities, especially in the cases of education and work, such being in schools, colleges and university settings.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, formerly known as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, is a United States federal law that governs how states and public agencies provide early intervention, special education and related services to children with disabilities. It addresses the educational needs of children with disabilities from birth to the age of 21. Considered as a civil rights law, states are not required to participate.
United Kingdom
In the UK, terms such as specific learning difficulty (SpLD), Developmental Dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia are used to cover the range of learning difficulties referred to in the United States as “learning disabilities”. In the UK, the term “learning disability” refers to a range of developmental disabilities or conditions that are almost invariably associated with more severe generalized cognitive impairment.