children s health issues
Learning Disorders
Introduction
Learning disorders involve an inability to acquire, retain, or broadly use specific skills or information, resulting from deficiencies in attention, memory, or reasoning and affecting academic performance. Affected children may be slow to learn names of colors or letters, to count, or to learn to read or write. Children take a series of academic and intelligence tests given by learning specialists, and doctors may apply established criteria to make the diagnosis. Treatment involves a learning plan tailored to the child’s skills. Learning disorders are Definition of Developmental Disorders . Learning disorders are quite different from Intellectual Disability (previously called mental retardation) and occur in children with normal or even high intellectual function. Learning disorders affect only certain functions, whereas in children with intellectual disability, difficulties affect cognitive functions broadly. Three common types of learning disordersare Reading disorders Disorders of written expression Mathematics disorders Thus, children with learning disorders may have significant difficulty understanding and learning math, but have no difficulty reading, writing, and doing well in other subjects. Dyslexia is the best known of the learning disorders. Learning disorders do not include learning problems that are due primarily to problems of vision, hearing, coordination, or emotional disturbance, although these problems can also occur in children with learning disorders. Children may be born with a learning disorder or develop one as they grow. Although the causes of learning disorders are not fully understood, they include abnormalities in the basic processes involved in understanding or in using spoken or written language or numerical and spatial reasoning. Possible causes include illness in the mother or the mother's Safety of Medications During Pregnancy , complications during pregnancy or delivery (for example, Although the total number of children in the United States with learning disorders is unknown, in the 2019–2020 school year, 7.3 million students (or 14% of all public school students) ages 3 to 21 in the United States received special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Among students receiving these special education services, 33% (or about 5% of all students) had specific learning disabilities. Boys with learning disorders may outnumber girls five to one, although girls are often not recognized or diagnosed as having learning disorders. Many children, particularly those with behavioral problems, do poorly in school and are tested by educational psychologists for learning disorders. However, some children with certain types of learning disorders hide their deficits well, avoiding diagnosis and therefore treatment, for a long time. Learning disorders can occur in children with normal and high intellectual function. 