How a specific learning difficulty is diagnosed

Abstract

In many cases it is the teacher who first suspects that a child may have a specific learning difficulty. Teachers are able to compare a child’s work and behaviour to that of his peers, and so can often spot a child who is experiencing difficulties before this is noticed by his parents. Sometimes, however, parents are the first to realize that their child may have a problem. There is no completely reliable way of detecting that your child has a specific learning difficulty, but here are some pointers that may alert you to the need for further evaluation of your child’s difficulties. . . . Pointers to a specific learning difficulty . . . It is quite normal for a child to struggle with skills such as reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic in the first year or two of school, but after this period, he should attain a basic level of competence. If your child continues to struggle beyond this period, he may have a specific learning difficulty. This should be suspected if he seems to be out of his depth and is not showing signs of becoming competent in basic academic skills. It may also be apparent to you that he seems brighter than these difficulties in his academic work would suggest. His reading may be slow and hesitant, with elementary errors. When reading, he may make up the story based on the illustrations to cover his difficulties, or he may guess wildly at words. He may be unable to spell the words in his spelling list, despite trying reasonably hard. His writing may remain very immature or illegible despite his best efforts. Another warning sign is a child who can write neatly, but only if he writes at an extremely slow speed. If his arithmetic skills are affected, he will seem to be lost when asked to do the calculations expected of a child in his class. He may have great difficulties understanding the meaning of arithmetical operations such as addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Another clue that a child may have a specific learning difficulty is speech delay.