• CHAPTER ANNOTATION

1. INTRODUCTION TO LEARNING DISABILITIES
2. DEFINING LEARNING DISABILITIES
3. CLASSIFICATION OF LEARNING DIFFICULTIES
4. PREVALENCE AND ETIOLOGY OF LEARNING DISABILITIES
5. ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING DISABILITIES
6. READING DIFFICULTIES
7. WRITTEN LANGUAGE DEFICITS
8. MATH UNDERACHIEVEMENT
9. MOTOR COORDINATION DEFICITS
10. ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER
11. SOURCES AND LITERATURE

2. DEFINING LEARNING DISABILITIES

The Individuals with Disability Education Act states that “the term ‘specific learning disability’ means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which disorder may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations.

This term includes such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.

Such term does not include a learning problem that is primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of mental retardation, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.”

According to the IDEA a child may be labeled as having learning difficulties when it does not achieve adequately for the child’s age or abilities, provided with learning

experiences appropriate for the child’s age and ability levels, in one or more of the following areas:

• oral expression,
• written expression,
• basic reading skills,
• reading comprehension
• mathematics calculation,
• mathematics problem solving.

The ICLD Definition

The Interagency Committee on Learning Disabilities, a US government committee, developed a definition which is not mentioning IQ as a defining characteristic and on the other hand including social skills deficits.

According to ICDL learning disabilities have the following major features:

• LD are manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities, or of social skills.
• LD are intrinsic to the individual and presumed to be due to central nervous system dysfunction.
• LD may occur concomitantly with other conditions (but not result from them), especially attention deficit disorders and socioenvironmental influences.

All the above mentioned definitions have some features in common:

• discrepancy between a pupil’s potential and academic achievement,
• central nervous system dysfunction,
• difficulty in academic and learning tasks,
• LD is not to be confused with generalized low ability and is not result of other condition.

In the Czech Republic, one of the most widely used definition was invented by Matějíček in 1980. “The term learning difficulties is sheltering a heterogeneous group of disorders. These disorders manifest themselves as difficulties in speaking, understanding of speech, writing, mathematical abilities or computing. These conditions are inherent to the individual and are a result of central nervous system dysfunction. LD are not a result of another disabilities, however, may occur concomitantly with other disabilities (sensory, mental, etc.) or environmental influences (inappropriate education, cultural differences).”