7 Different Types of Learning Disabilities

Do you remember solving jumbled words and puzzles in school? Weren’t they fun? It was always a moment to rejoice when you figured out the correct word or found the answer to a tricky puzzle.

But imagine this – what if you find yourself unable to differentiate between similar-looking letters or mathematical symbols? It might leave you utterly befuddled and perplexed. However, this confusion is a reality for many individuals around us. And we often judge others based on their difficulties and the challenges they face, be it deliberately or mistakenly, which may contribute to their distress.

According to the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP), 10-12% of the Indian school-going population struggles due to a learning disability. That affects their capability to comprehend and process information in their daily lives. So, it only seems fair that we make ourselves aware of these invisible, unseen, and often ignored disabilities and how they impact people differently.

Let’s take a step closer to understanding what learning disabilities are and what measures we can take to make life a little more accessible for people with these disorders.

A Quick Definition

Learning disabilities are a group of neurodevelopmental disorders that affect basic psychological processes that involve understanding and using language. In simpler terms, it alters a person’s ability to receive, process, recall, and communicate information. And it can manifest in several ways. For some, it might impair their reading ability, while for others, it might be speaking. It also hampers the capability to learn new things, often resulting in people needing help to speak, read, write, comprehend instructions, remember, stay attentive, solve mathematical calculations, or even coordinate basic movements.

In most cases, learning disorders manifest at an early age and get diagnosed during a person’s childhood. For some people, it is also possible that some symptoms are left undiagnosed until much later, making it extremely difficult for them to lead their entire life without fully understanding what is wrong with them. Inaccessibility, on account of these disabilities, can be truly disheartening, especially when people see their peers and colleagues achieve success at a much higher rate when they struggle to keep up with them. Such invisible disabilities can even affect people’s relationships with their loved ones and society.

Common learning disabilities significantly alter a person’s life and the ability to perform daily menial tasks. However, these challenges aren’t synonymous with their intelligence and capability to achieve greatness. Sometimes what we see as a disability is instead the person’s superpower, which can enhance other skills, such as creative medium, or even offer a unique perspective of perceiving things around them. And it is essential to recognize the common symptoms and offer as much compassion and understanding as possible to ensure a fair and accessible world.

Signs and Symptoms

Some evident symptoms might suggest that a child or a person has some sort of learning disabilities, which include:

• Impaired memory, or the inability to remember information. 
• Difficulty focusing or getting easily distracted. 
• Short attention span, inability to concentrate on a matter for a long time. 
• Needing assistance with reading or writing or finding it challenging to distinguish words, letters, or numbers.
• Failing to differentiate sounds, letters, or numbers. 
• Difficulty voicing out certain words due to uncertainty about identifying them. 
• Facing problems putting numbers or letters in the right order. 
• Inability to tell time. 
• Confusion with direction, like difficulty differentiating right and left. 
• Tendency to reverse letter sequence. 
• Difficulty comprehending particular words and concepts
• Confusing terms and their meaning, or saying one thing but meaning another. 
• Inability to express thoughts and emotions clearly. 
• Poor hand-eye coordination.
• Delayed speech development.
• Disorganized movement.
• Trouble following instructions and listening to information. 
• Constant restlessness. 
• Tendency to be impulsive.
• Tendency to act out irrationally.
• Difficulty with the concept of discipline.
• Reluctance to change.

While every child might face these challenges at some time during their academic year, people with learning difficulties tend to have more than one or two symptoms that might persist even with age. These symptoms vary in severity for different people, and it is common for a person to discover the signs in their teenage years or adulthood. Here is a list of common learning disabilities.

1. Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a disability that impairs a person’s ability to read, understand and even speak. Individuals with different types of dyslexia typically find it challenging to read at a fast or moderate pace that others might consider normal, as they may make mistakes in recognizing certain letters and spelling. This difficulty also compels them to seek help spelling words, writing, reading, and comprehending phrases. While children might write or perceive some letters backward, it is not a determined trait of a dyslexic individual. This disorder has some definitive symptoms, which include:

• Inability to associate letters with their respective sounds.
• Lack of phonetic awareness (difficulty differentiating rhyming words or breaking words into syllables).
• Taking a longer time to learn to talk than children their age.
• Finding it challenging to memorize letters, numbers, or even colors.
• Tendency to avoid activities that involve reading and writing.

2. Dysgraphia

Dysgraphia affects the ability to write and fine motor skills, such as spelling, spacing between words/letters, sizing, and legibility. Some common symptoms of dysgraphia include:

• Inability to write/draw the shapes of a letter.
• Difficulty handling pen or pencil, i.e., unconventionally gripping the writing instrument.
• Difficulty maintaining a straight line and staying within margins while writing.
• Inability to maintain proper sentence structure and grammar while writing, but not when speaking.

3. Dyscalculia

Dyscalculia refers to a disability affecting mathematical skills. Dyscalculia is also known as “number dyslexia” or “math dyslexia.” It typically impairs the ability to learn even the basic mathematical concepts as simple as differentiating “greater than” and “less than.” The common symptoms of dyscalculia include:

• Difficulty counting or remembering the order of numbers.
• Difficulty recognizing numbers with their figures (trouble with associating 5 and five as the same thing).
• Inability to comprehend mathematical concepts as simple as addition or multiplication.
• Inability to convert or calculate the value of money.

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4. Dyspraxia

Dyspraxia or Visual Perceptual/Visual Motor Deficit impairs an individual’s ability to process and understand visual information. It refers to poor hand-eye coordination and interpretation of visual information. Here are some common symptoms of dyspraxia:

• Difficulty navigating their surroundings, such as playgrounds or corridors.
• Finding comfort in reading or writing in an unconventional manner.
• Unusual eye movements while focusing on a task such as reading or writing.
• Constantly losing their spot while reading.

5. Auditory Processing Disorder

Auditory processing disorder makes distinguishing subtle differences in words while hearing complex, which often leads to the inability to comprehend. The disorder results from the improper coordination between the auditory and the nervous system (ear and brain). This often makes loud environments such as classrooms overwhelming for children, as they find it difficult to distinguish the important instructions from the teacher and all the other noises. Some common symptoms of auditory processing disorder include:

• Difficulty staying focused or hearing properly in loud environments.
• Difficulty following directions with environmental noise.
• Difficulty locating the source of a sound.
• Inability to remember oral information/instruction.
• Difficulty in learning to read as the sound distinction is essential to develop reading skills.

6. Language Processing Disorder

Language processing disorder, or LPD, is an auditory processing disorder that affects the ability to process speech. There are two LPDs – expressive language disorder, which causes difficulty expressing thoughts clearly, and receptive language disorder, causing difficulty understanding others’ words. Here are some symptoms of language processing disorder:

• Inability to find the right word to express or convey thoughts.
• Difficulty staying attentive in the middle of a conversation.
• Social withdrawal due to difficulty in actively engaging in conversations.
• Delayed response.
• Struggle to express emotions due to language impairment. This may often mislead them into believing that they have below-average intelligence.

7. Nonverbal Learning Disabilities

A nonverbal learning disorder affects motor, visual-spatial, and social skills. Children with NVLD might have above-average or excellent verbal and writing skills. But they might find it challenging to interpret non-verbal or social cues such as body language, facial expression, tone of voice, and abstract concepts like metaphors. Some common symptoms to identify a nonverbal learning disorder include:

• Inability to understand social cues, which makes it challenging to form friendships or engage in conversations.
• Poor spatial awareness.
• Indirect and abstract literary concepts, like metaphors or stories, could be challenging to understand.

How to Get a Diagnosis

There are several reliable ways to diagnose whether someone is struggling with a learning disability:

• Academic testing: This test involves the assessment of reading, writing, and mathematical skills and the intelligence quotient (IQ). If the person has an adequate IQ score but a lower score on the achievement test, it might suggest a learning disability.
• Performance review: This technique reviews and evaluates a person’s academic, professional, and social performance.
• Medical history: A person’s personal and family medical history can provide helpful insight into whether they struggle with LD.
• Physical and neurological exam: This technique evaluates physical and neurological aspects and other health conditions such as mental health conditions or intellectual disabilities.

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Learning disabilities affect a person’s ability to comprehend and learn, but it doesn’t mean they lack intelligence. However, misconceptions exist, which results in an inaccessible environment for people with such invisible disorders.

But you can always rely on a professional’s advice if you think that you or your child might suffer from a neurodevelopmental disorder. And you need not look further!

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