LEARNING DISABILITIES--HOW CAN WE HELP?

Learning disabilities affect people's ability to either interpret what they see and hear or to link information from different parts of the brain. These limitations can show up as specific difficulties with spoken and written language, coordination, self-control, or attention. Such difficulties extend to schoolwork and can impede learning to read or write, or to do math. Due to the complexity of their learning difficulties, children with learning disabilities need to use a strategic learning approach, rather than randomly using the learning techniques they have independently created. We can be significantly helpful when it comes to making students consciously aware of the various strategies available to them in a given academic situation and how to choose the one that will be most optimal.

Learning disabilities often leave children feeling like failures. Despite high levels of intelligence, many children struggle through school eventually becoming behavior problems. What goes unrecognized in these children is an auditory, language or visual processing problem. These children are often conceptual, rather than sequential learners. The problem often goes undiagnosed precisely because these children are so clever that they devise coping tools that allow them to "get by." Working so hard for average or below average grades and then being blamed for not trying hard enough takes its toll on confidence and self-esteem. Most of these children either give up and withdraw or begin to act out their frustration. For a child like this, our tutoring can be life changing. Not surprisingly, many students know little about the learning process, their own strengths and weaknesses in a learning situation, and what strategies they naturally tend to use when learning something new.

Students with learning disabilities often need to work in well-defined steps. After establishing realistic goals, determining what areas the student wants to improve, and which areas the student finds most challenging, the tutor will help the student develop the "preskills" required for each goal (i.e. in order to learn strategies for organizing paragraphs, the student needs to understand why paragraphs are used, how they are generally sequenced, etc.).

Our tutor will then familiarize your child with particular strategies and help your child to practice them. The tutor will provide the student with honest, yet supportive feedback about how successfully each strategy was applied and whether it could be employed in a more effective way.

Students with LDs typically have learning differences in one or more areas of reading, writing, math, listening comprehension, and expressive language. We believe that multi-sensory techniques enable students to use their personal areas of strength to help them learn. They can range from simple to complex, depending on the needs of the student and the task at hand. For example, the physical act of putting pen or pencil to paper may be an overwhelming task for a child with a learning disability. Legibility is difficult as well as the need to recognize the relationship between the symbol and the sound of letters and words. In light of this, misspellings can occur even though the student has the knowledge needed to spell the word because he or she can easily substitute one letter for another such as "f" for an "s." Having to put so much effort into putting words on paper means less energy and attention is available for comprehension, fluencies, and creativity in writing. More efficient strategies are imperative in order for the child to make progress in his or her written expression.

When the goal of the activity or task is written expression and not handwriting or grammar work, access to word processing on a computer or stand alone keyboard can become an indispensable tool for a child with handwriting or written expression difficulties. Teaching a student simple computer word processing skills can help alleviate difficulties in writing caused by poor spelling, lack of grammar skills, poor handwriting, and inability to revise written work easily.