Child & Family Development Child & Family Development

March 10, 2015

Learning disabilities: 10 warning signs during school years

rbsy_10_20Our psychologists and educators can help children, teens and young adults with learning disabilities through comprehensive assessment and goal-directed support.  

There are some classic warning signs of a learning disability during the school years:

  1. Oral reading is slow or labored
  2. Reads with substitutions, adds words or guesses at words
  3. Poor decoding skills (not able to properly “sound out a word”)
  4. Poor spelling skills (often individuals with dyslexia will spell words correctly on a spelling test ,but are not able to generalize into other day-to-day writing assignments)
  5. Poor fine motor skills
  6. Poor handwriting
  7. Trouble with recall or retrieval of math facts, especially quick retrieval
  8. Writes or reads letters and/or numbers reversed
  9. Doesn’t enjoy reading
  10. Doesn’t enjoy writing

Learning disabilities, and specifically dyslexia, impact approximately 20% of the population. The NC and SC public school systems have resources in special education to identify individuals with learning disabilities however, procedures and guidelines are such that most children are not identified with learning disorders until 2nd or 3rd grade and in order to be identified their delays must be significantly impacting their educational performance. Therefore, many children with mild delays simply ‚Äúfall through the cracks‚Äù as their mild delays turn into moderate and severe delays without appropriate intervention. Research indicates the children make the greatest gains in learning to read in grades K through 2nd. Research has also shown that if the reading gap is not remediated by the 3rd grade, it is very hard to close. Therefore, it is imperative that professionals in the medical field collaborate with parents and educators to help identify individuals with learning disabilities.

Talk with a pediatrician or teacher if you have concerns.  They may recommend psycho-educational evaluation.  

Learn more about services school-age children with signs of a learning disability at Child and Family Development here.