Children and Learning Disorders

There are many forms of disabilities that can affect the child’s normal developmental process. Some disabilities can be more severe than others.

A common type of disability hindering a child’s development is a learning disorder. Having such a disorder can be painful for children as they have to deal the disconnections they may be experiencing from thought, expression and creativity, books and words as well as people and feelings (Hallowell & Ratey, 1995).

The most common learning disorder is Dyslexia. Children who are suffering from Dyslexia tend to feel confused and are easily upset trying to work out the right messages. They are often very smart therefore they tend to get frustrated when they have problems with reading, spelling, listening and understanding.

According to Dr Kim, (2006, p.1) “the collecting part of the brain gets the seeing and hearing message muddled up so that the detective part of the brain can’t work things out correctly”.

There are different forms of dyslexia, including:

1. Writing letters the wrong way round
2. They find it hard to write by hand
3. They have difficulty copying things accurately off the board
4. They can’t remember or understand what they have just read
5. They can’t remember or understand what they have just heard
6. They can’t repeat what they have just been told
7. They have difficulty writing down what they think
8. They have trouble understanding and following instructions
9. They tend to get letters the wrong way round when spelling out loud.

Whiteside and Stokes (2001) describe Dyslexia as having a mental blind spot in the brain, causing them to have an inability to perceive or understand a specific subject or issue. They have suggested that people having trouble with their learning may not be dyslexic, but rather show dyslexic like traits as symptoms of stress.