Helping Children With Learning Disabilities

Children with severe learning disability can be a little difficult to manage because of their specific needs and wants. These children live in the world of their own and neither do they subscribe to the ways of our world, nor are they much interested in it. They simply can not understand the world other than the one they build inside themselves. It is the loss of communication continuity, the loss of connection that makes the child to build up a world within him self or her self. It is normally because the child feels isolated and lonely. Let that not happen.

The children with acute learning disability would often find it difficult to develop minor motor skills like using scissors and painting or even handling a paint brush properly. And these children can be very sensitive to many things. They even would hardly make out jokes, as it is difficult for them to understand different meanings ascribed to different words. Most of them would fail to recall as to what actually sound each letter or a word, which is a combination of letters, made. After that there are others who can read aloud very well. They recognize the uttered sound each word has to make and can make them, but they have no clue as to what those lines mean. Another category of such disordered children consists of those who have difficulty in reading words, but once they are helped with it, they can understand the meaning very well.

A majority of these children however, have problems with organizational skills, which translated into their losing their pencils, pens, notebooks, coats, etc. Their rooms should always be like a battlefield and so would be their cupboards. They simply have no idea or skill on how to organize things, and how to stack them up neatly. In case of such disordered children what one needs to do is try to understand them, and be very patient. These children react easily, and that is natural. But if people react to that reaction, it can make things much too difficult for the child. It is also important that if the child is showing any of the learning disability symptoms mentioned above, people should go for an evaluation. Likely the earlier it is diagnosed, the better it is. People should keep in mind that as long as they do not completely cut them off from their world, there is every chance that they would overcome their disability to a very large extent, sooner or later.

Has the child been left behind! Most of the children today have been left behind in school with no chance to succeed. They are tagged as slow learners or considered having too many psychic problems. Some children are diagnosed with ADD or ADHD or LD. Some children have been placed in special education classes and are all but forgotten. Other children are given many types of medication with no satisfaction.

Children with disability start out in life eager to learn everything. When they gradually start school, they enjoy learning and competing with their classmates. When these children realize that they are not able to keep up with their friends, they will try to compensate for their problem. When their problem becomes too much for them to master, they will give up and resort to a change in character. Later on, not understanding what to do, parent will sometimes resort to serious punishment of some type or medication. This will only enhance their mental problem.

• Matt Thompson
• 07/02/2009, 2:59 AM
• 0 Comments