What is a learning disability (LD)?
A learning disability is a brain-based disorder that impacts how an individual takes in, understands, organizes or uses information. Learning disabilities come from problems in one or more of the psychological processes related to learning. Learning disabilities occur in individuals with average to above average thinking or reasoning skills.
What causes learning disabilities?
Learning disabilities are sometimes caused by genetics. LD can also be a result of injury or illness to the brain; occurring before birth, during birth or after birth. There are also some medical conditions that result in LD. They are specific disabilities and do not affect a person's entire intellect. Some people with LD have intelligence in the superior range.
What are the different types of LD?
Expressive language disability - Difficulty using oral and written language to communicate with others in a meaningful way, may affect language phonology (pronunciation), syntax (grammar), semantics (word meaning), and/or pragmatics (appropriate use of language).
Receptive language disability - Difficulty understanding the meaning that is communicated through oral and written language, speed of processing of language may be much slower, may affect pronunciation, grammar, word meaning, and/or appropriate use of language. The impact of this difficulty increases with complexity of language. It also leads to difficulty with reading comprehension and affects judgment, making comparisons, reasoning, problem solving and decision making.
Reading disability or dyslexia - Difficulty breaking words down into individual sounds (decoding) and blending sounds together to read words quickly and accurately, decoding problems often result in reading comprehension problems, spelling also relies on the ability to manipulate individual sounds in words (phonemes).
Math disability - Language processing, reading, visual processing and visual spatial/visual motor problems.
Non-verbal learning disability - Difficulty interpreting visual cues from the environment, difficulty adapting to novel situations/change, difficulty interpreting and organizing visual-spatial information into meaningful patterns, difficulties with organization (e.g., breaking tasks down into component parts and combining parts to make the whole).
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - Highest rate of co-occurrence with learning disabilities (22-40%), occurs in 3% to 7% of the childhood population, diagnosed more frequently in males than in females, characterized by inappropriate levels of inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity.
Quick facts about LD:
- Approximately 200,000 students in Ontario elementary and secondary schools receive special education programs and services.
- Some studies are now showing that exposure to environmental toxins can results in neurodevelopmental disorders, such as LD.
- One in ten Canadians has a learning disability (or 3 million Canadians).
- It is estimated that 35% of students identified with learning disabilities drop out of high school.
- It has been estimated that 30% - 70% of young people involved in the criminal justice system have learning problems.
- 50% of females with learning disabilities will be mothers within 3 to 5 years of leaving high school.
- 30% of adults with severe literacy problems have undetected or untreated LD.
- The second most common long-term condition suffered by children 0 to 14 years of age is learning disabilities - it has been reported that 95,580 children have this condition in Canada.
