Learning Disabilities

Adolescents who have learning disabilities are often bright, creative, and capable, but have neurological or behavioral / emotional issues that impact performance in certain areas, such as reading, math, or social skills. Your teenager might perform exceptionally well in one area, but underachieve in another. These disparities in performance often frustrate and confuse parents and teachers. They cannot understand how a child so capable in one area of his or her life has so much difficulty in another area. If teachers and parents do not properly identify the learning disability, such adolescents can "fall through the cracks" of the traditional education system.

The hope among educators is that they can identify learning disabilities early on, when a child is still in grade school. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Public schools are often overcrowded and teachers struggle to maintain an effective class. When teachers and parents do not identify a learning disability early on, they often find that the child's problems increase significantly when he or she passes puberty.

In high school, teens with unrecognized learning disabilities are often disruptive, unhappy, and frustrated. They have not developed the necessary skills to keep up with their classmates, and this damages their self-esteem. These adolescents are not any less bright than their peers, they simply have specific emotional, behavioral, or neurological issues that require specific interventions and teaching techniques to allow them to succeed in school.

Did you know that 50% of all juvenile delinquents have been shown to have unrecognized learning disabilities? These teens often drop out of school or end up in trouble with the law. If these teens do graduate from high school, they often find it difficult to keep a job and spend much time unemployed.

Types of LDs

Dyslexia, a reading disability
Dyscalculia, a math disability
Dysgraphia, a writing disability
Developmental articulation disorder
Developmental expressive language disorder
Developmental receptive language disorder
Motor skills disorders
ADD, ADHD often occurs in these children

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