What do you mean by learning disabilities? What are its causes?

Learning disability is a generic term which is used to define a certain set of population which find it difficult to use listening, speaking or mathematical abilities. These disorders can happen to an individual due to central nervous breakdown or some other dysfunction.

In fact learning disability is nothing but a sort of handicap or helplessness that can be felt by the sufferer in terms of his academic performance.

Learning disabled children may also exhibit symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsivity. Most of them suffer from emotional problems and demonstrate signs of anxiety, moodiness or ups and downs in their behaviour. Their learning disability is not apparent in their physical appearance. They may exhibit disorder of memory, thinking ,attention, general coordination, perception and motor functioning etc.

They usually exhibit the following learning characteristics responsible for their learning impairment (i) lack of motivation, (ii) inattention, (iii)inability to generalize, and (iv) lack of adequate ability in problem solving. Their learning impairment is so severe that they essentially require special attention care and remedial programmes.

Some common learning disabilities.

Dyscalculia ¬– Disability where an individual finds it difficult to understand numbers and learn maths.

Dyslexia- Disability where person can not read.

Dysgraphia- Disability in which a person can not write due to hampered motor skills.

ADHD- Disability where an individual finds it difficult to stay focused.

Causes of Learning Disabilities

Genetic or heredity factors- Nearly 20 to 25% of hyperactivity or impulsive children have been found to have at least one parent of this nature.

Organic or physiological factor like Brain damage caused by an accident or damage caused by spinal cord or dysfunction of the central nervous system.

Environmental factors – like poor nourishment , pre mature delivery, uncongenial and improper environmental settings, diet deficiency etc.

Well, for adopting educational measures for the learning disabled , we should not emphasize segregation in terms of separate schools or classes for them but try to provide due care and attention within the existing educational set-up by adopting special remedial and educational programmes and restructuring and improving the existing environmental set-up to meet the special needs of these children.

Learning disabilities are neurologically-based processing problems. These processing problems can interfere with learning basic skills such as reading, writing and/or math. They can also interfere with higher level skills such as organization, time planning, abstract reasoning, long or short term memory and attention.

It is thought that learning disabilities may be caused by hereditary, teratogenic factors (for instance, alcohol or cocaine use during pregnancy), medical factors (premature birth, diabetes, meningitis of mother or offspring), and/or environmental factors (malnutrition, poor prenatal healthcare).