KOCHI: As December 3 is celebrated as World Disability Day, it is seen that learning disability (LD) is an important cause of poor school performance affecting about 10 per cent of school children. These children have normal or near normal intelligence, yet are not able to perform well in class. Outwardly they look normal, so parents and teachers think it is only their laziness or stubbornness and hence they get punished or ridiculed.
What exactly causes LD is not clearly understood. Theories tell it occurs due to an underdevelopment of a part of the brain, ineffective communication between various parts of brain, or a faulty information processing. Whatever may be the cause, it results in difficulties in the acquisition and use of abilities such as reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic or social skills.
Suspecting LD
An observant teacher or parent may reveal that
b The child is bright, yet he gets poor marks in class.
b He is good in everything except studies.
b He can answer well orally, but writing is difficult for him.
Reason for diagnosing LD
If LD is correctly diagnosed at the right time, it gives parents the relief that it is a disorder entity and not their fault or their child. Any child suspected to have LD needs a comprehensive assessment by a multidisciplinary team comprising of a clinical / educational psychologist, pediatrician, special educators, psychiatrist, social worker and speech and language pathologist.
Difficulties faced by an LD Child
Reading tires the LD Child early. He reads slowly, hesitantly, with omissions or additions of letters and without paying attention to punctuations.He fails to look carefully at the word, make a guess from the first letter eg. reads ‘position’ for ‘proportion’. He misses on a line or page while reading, he reads loud monotonously, word by word. Writing tires his brain – he is slow, poor in hand writing, awkward pencil grip. Spelling is bad.Not able to complete class notes, has trouble copying from black board.
Spellings are awful as well as grammer and syntax. He omits full stop, commas and fails to see the need for capital letters. He confuses ‘b’ for ‘d’, ‘m’ for ‘w’, some times ‘was’ for ‘saw’, ‘bad’ for ‘dad’.
In arithmetic, may have difficulty to remember arithmetic table. May reverse numbers eg. 16 for 61, subtraction usually a problem.Some children are clumsy. Loses his book and pencils and forgets home work.
He has his clothes in disarray, buttoned without order, or one shoe lace undone. He does not look where he is going, bumps into the door, trips over an object on the way. He has trouble waiting in a que, cannot sit or stand quietly or wait for his turn when the teacher asks questions.
Principles of Management of LD
Remedial teaching, identifying strengths in each child and promoting it, making use of provisions sanctioned by Govt, provision of extra time and provision for scribes for written exams, building self esteem, spending quality time by parents, praising child’s efforts rather than marks scored etc.
Medical management of co-morbidities like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity (ADHD) and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).Parents, teachers and school managements should have an idea about the condition and should subject all children with poor school performance for a detailed medical / educational evaluation.
Camp
The Centre for Learning Disabilities is conducting a free screening camp for school children with poor school performance on December 2 from 9 am to 1 pm. Child Care Centre is the joint venture of Indian Academy of Pediatrics and Ernakulam District Council for Child Welfare, with District Collector as Chairman, established in 1995.