What Are Some Common Signs of LD's in Grades K-4 Children

Slow to learn the connection between letters and sounds
Confuses basic words (run, eat, want)
Makes consistent reading and spelling errors including letter reversals (b/d), inversion (m/w), transposition (felt/left), and substitutions (house/home)
Transposes number sequences and confuses arithmetic signs (+, -, x, /, =)
Slow to remember facts
Slow to learn new skills, relies heavily on memorization
Impulsive, difficulty planning
Unstable pencil grip, poor printing, writing
Trouble learning about the concept of or telling time
Poor coordination, unaware of physical surroundings, prone to accidents
Difficulty cutting with scissors, colouring and printing inside the lines
Cannot tie laces, button clothes, or get dressed
Reads but does not comprehend
Difficulty playing with more then one child at a time, may prefer to play alone
Difficulty remembering the names of things:  the seasons, the months, streets, etc.
Does not understand the difference between 'up and down'; 'top and bottom', 'in and out', 'front of and behind', etc

Common Signs of Learning Disabilities in Preschool Children

• Speaks later than most children and has immature speech patterns
• Slow vocabulary growth, often unable to find the right words, pronunciation problems
• Difficulty rhyming words
• Trouble learning numbers, alphabet, days of the week, colours, shapes
• Extremely restless and easily distracted
• Trouble interacting with peers
• Difficulty following directions or routines
• Difficulty with dressing
• Fine motor skills slow to develop
• Exaggerated response to excitement or frustration
• Tendency to trip, or bump into things
• Cannot skip, has trouble bouncing and catching a ball

Signs In Infancy

• Trouble with nursing, sucking or digesting
• Resistance to cuddling and body contact
• Lack of, or excessive response to sounds or other stimulus
• Trouble following movements with eyes
• Unusual sleep patterns
• Delays in sitting, standing, walking
• Absence of creeping and crawling
• Little or no vocalization
• Irritability

Tomorrow we will look at the signs of Preschool aged children

What Are Some Common Signs Of Learning Disabilities

Over then next number of days we will be taking a look at some of the common signs of Learning Disabilities.

It is estimated that 10% of Canadians have learning disabilities.  Because of the very nature of the disability and because most children spend at least ten years of their lives in school, the most frequently noted signs are related to school performance.  However, it is important to remember that the disability is not confined to school hours and may be identified during the preschool years.

In most cases, parents rarely realize that anything is amiss until the child enters school.  In the case of children with more severe learning disabilities, the parents may have suspected for some time that something was different about this child.  If parents, teachers, and other professionals discover a child's learning disability early and provide the right kind of help, it can give the child a chance to develop skills needed to lead a successful and productive life.  A recent US Nation Institutes of Health study showed that 67% of young students who were at risk for reading difficulties became average or above average readers after receiving help in the early grades.  All children exhibit some of the following behaviours at times. 

The presence of one or two of these signs may not be significant, but a cluster of these behaviours requires further assessment.

We will look at the signs in separate blogs daily.  Keep Posted.

Should people with dysgraphia use cursive writing instead of printing?

For many children with dysgraphia, cursive writing has several advantages.  It eleminates the necessity of picking up a pencil and deciding where to replace it after each letter.  Each letter starts on the line, thus eliminating anther potencially confusing decision for the writer.  Cursive also has very few reversible letters, a typical source of trouble for people with dysgraphia.  It eliminates word-spacing problems and gives words a flow and rhythm that enhances learning.  For children who find it difficult to remember the motor patterns of letter forms, starting with cursive eliminates the traumatic transition from manuscript to cursive writing.  Writers in cursive also have more opportunity to distinguish b, d, p, and q because the cursive letter formations for writing each of these letters is so different.

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What is the treatment for dysgraphia?

Prevention, remediation and accommodation are all important elements in the treatment of dysgraphia.  Many problems can be prevented by early training.  Young children in kindergarten and grade one should learn to form letters correctly; kinesthetic memory is powerful and incorrect habits are very difficult to eradicate.

Muscle training and over-learning good techniques are both critical for the remediation of dysgraphia.  Specifically designed exercises are needed to increase strength and dexterity.  A specialist can recommend the most appropriate plan of exercises.  For all students, kinesthetic writing, that is writing with eyes closed or averted, is a powerful reinforcer.  Work needs always to begin with the formation of individual letters written in isolation.  Alphabets need to be practiced daily, often for months.

Finally, individuals can benefit from a variety of modifications and accommodations.  One effective method is to teach the use of a word processor, by passing the complex motor demands of handwriting.  Many students may find learning the keyboard by the alphabet method easier than beginning with the home keys.  For many, touch typing offers a whole new opportunity to learn to spell through a different kinesthetic mode.  Students should also experiment with different writing tools; some people with dysgraphia may find pencil grips helpful.  Other bypass methods include allowing a student to answer questions orally or into a tape recorder instead of writing, modifying written assignments so that less writing is required, and allowing extended time to complete tests and assignments.  Copying from the board is an especially difficult task.  Teachers need to provide notes.  Photocopying the notes of anther student is one possibility.  Providing an outline, with spaces left for the student to fill in information, is another.  Writing on a slightly inclined plane may be helpful.

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Who is qualified to diagnose dysgraphia

Dysgraphia cannot be diagnosed solely by looking at a handwriting sample.  A qualified clinician must directly test the individual.  Such a test includes writing self-generated sentences and paragraphs and copying age-appropriate text.  The examiner assesses not only the finished product, but also the process, including posture, position, pencil grip, fatigue, cramping or tremor of the writing hand, eyedness and handedness, and other factors.  The examiner may assess fine-motor speed with finger-tapping and wrist turning.

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What are the different types of dysgraphia?

While dysgraphia may be broadly classified as follows, there are many individual variations that affect both treatment and prognosis:

1. In dyslexic dysgraphia, spontaneously written text is illegible, espceially when the text is complex.  Oral spelling is poor, but drawing and copying of written text are relatively normal.  Finger-tapping speed (a measure of fine motor speed) is normal.
2. In motor dysgraphia, both spontaneously written and copied text may be illegible, oral spelling is normal, and drawing is usually problematic.  Finger-tapping speed is abnormal.
3. In spatial dysgraphia, people display illegible writing, whether spontaneously produced or prepared.  Oral spelling is normal.  Finger-tapping speed is normal, but drawing is very problematic.

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What Causes Dysgraphia?

A few people with dysgraphia lack only the fine-motor coordination to produce legible handwriting, but some may have a physical tremor that interferes with writing.  In most cases, however, several brain systems interact to produce dysgraphia.  Some experts believe that dysgraphia involves a dysfunction in the interaction between the two main brain systems that allows a person to translate mental into written langauge (phoneme-to-grapheme translation, i.e. Sound to symbol, and lexicon-to-grapheme translation, i.e. mental to written word).  Other studies have shown that split attention, memory load, and familiarity of graphic material affect writing ability.  Typically, a person with illegible handwriting has a combination of fine-motor difficulty, inability to revisulize letters, and inability to remember the motor patterns of letter forms

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Dysgraphia: The Handwriting Learning Disability

Over the next few days we will be taking a look at Dysgraphia

What is dysgraphia?

Dysgraphia means difficulty with handwriting.  There are several different kinds of dysgraphia.  Some people with dysgraphia have handwriting that is often illegible and shows irregular and inconsistent letter formations.  Others write legibly, but very slowly and/or very small.  When these individuals revert to printing, as they often do, their writing is often a random mixture of upper and lower case letters.  In all cases of dysgraphia, writing requires inordinate amounts of energy, stamina and time.

Dysgraphia can interfere with a student's ability to express ideas.  Expressive writing requires a student to synchronize many mental functions at once:  organization, memory, attention, motor skill, and various aspects of language ability.  Automatic accurate handwriting is the foundation for this juggling act.  In the complexity of remembering where to put the pencil and how to form each letter, a dysgraphic student forgets what he or she meant to express.  Dysgraphia can cause low classroom productivity, incomplete homework assignments, and difficulty in focusing attention.

Emotional factors arising from dysgraphia often exacerbate matters.  At an early age, these students are asked to forego recess to finish coping material from the board, and are likely to be sent home at the end of the day with a sheaf of unfinished papers to be completed.  They are asked to recopy their work but the second attempt is often no better than the first.  Because they are often bright and good at reading, their failure to produce acceptable work is blamed on laziness or carelessness.  The resulting anger and frustration can prevent them fromr ever reaching their true potential.

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What is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a learning disability in the area of reading.  It is included in the category of "Learning Disabilities" in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).  A person with dyslexia is someone with average to above average intelligence whose problem in reading is not the result of emotional problems, lack of motivation, poor teaching, mental retardation or vision or hearing deficits.  The term dyslexia, however, is defined in different ways.  While reading is the basic problem, people include different aspects of reading and related problems in their definitions.  For example:

• Problems learning to translate printed words into spoken word with ease, beginning reading skills (decoding)
• Problems with word identification and/or reading comprehension
• Persons with dyslexia often reverse or mis-sequence letters within words when reading or writing (b/d, brid/bird, on/no)

They may also exhibit difficulties with one or more of the following

• Perceiving and/or pronouncing words
• Understanding spoken language
• Recalling known words
• Handwriting
• Spelling
• Written language
• Math computation

What is reading?

Reading is more than translating print into the spoken word (decoding).  Reading is getting meaning from print.  People who have not developed automatic word recognition skills may have comprehension problems because their energy is focused on identifying words rather than thinking about what they mean.  Many of these children and adults read very slowly, often having to read things more than once to understand.  They may also have trouble understanding spoken language.

What causes dyslexia?

The basic cause of dyslexia is not known, however, much research is being done to determine the problems underlying dyslexia.  Research indicates that, in many cases, dyslexia is inherited and may occur in several members of a family.  Studies are being done to determine whether there are slight differences in the brains of people with dyslexia.  Recent research indicates that many children having difficulty learning early reading skills (decoding) also have problems hearing individual sounds in words, analyzing whole words into parts, and blending sounds into words (phonological processing).

What should be done when dyslexia is suspected?

Individuals suspected of having a reading disability should have a comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation including hearing, vision and intelligence testing.  This evaluation should include all areas of learning and learning processes, not just reading.  The diagnostician(s) should then be able to determine whether there are additional learning disabilities, make recommendations for teaching methods, and specify whether additional services are needed.

In many schools children are not identified as having a reading disability until they have failed for an extended period because of a "formula" used to determine whether a student is "eligible" for special services.  A child should not have to fail for two or three years to demonstrate evidence of a learning disability.

What educational interventions are appropriate?

If a child is diagnosed as having a reading disability (or dyslexia), it is important for parents to ask exactly what the problem is, what method for teaching reading is recommended, and why it was selected.  There are many approaches to teaching children with reading disabilities to read.  Recent research on beginning reading skills indicated that many children having difficulty benefit from direct instruction in phonological processing and a multi-sensory phonics approach to reading.  There is, however, no single method that will be effective with every child.  A change in method should be considered if progress is not seen in a reasonable length of time.  Selecting the appropriate reading method for a child with a reading disability is critical for success.

Widely advertised reading programs that claim to be successful in teaching phonics/reading to anyone should be viewed with caution.  It is highly recommended that before investing in these programs, research documenting their effectiveness with individuals having a diagnosed reading disability (dyslexia) be requested and reviewed.

Source:  LDAO:  http://www.ldao.ca/

11 (Not So) Surprising Benefits of Play

11 (Not So) Surprising Benefits of Play

Tips for Helping Children Achieve Academic Success

Consistency is a key factor for children's academic success.  Set a standart time for dinner to be served, and try to make dinner time including family discussions last a consistent duration.  Once dinner is over, make it a rule that this is when your child must complete his/her homework.  If your child is not involved in athletics or orther school events, then on some days your child can do homework before dinnertime.  If your child finishes all his/her homework before dinner, then after dinner study time should be used for reading or other educaitonal activities.

Teach your child that learning is more important than just memorizing facts and completing an assignment.  This is one of the most misunderstood and confusing concepts for children to understand.  Ask your child after completion of each homeowrk assignment to write down a couple sentences about what he/she learned, not facts, but broader concepts.  This will help your child put his/her learning into perspective.

Encourage your child to take notes in class.  Developing proper note taking skills are vital to your child's learning.  Rather than have your child try and write everything down as fast as possible, teach your child to search for the teacher's mian point and summarize it in your child's own words.  This will help your child weed throught he garbage and focus in on the teacher's core message.  After the lecture, encourage your child to rewrite the notes, expand on them, and organzie them in a meaningful way.  This is a great way for your child to review the material, and the improved organziation will help your child study for the test in the weeks to come.

Have the appropriate learning resources handy. It used to be that keeping a home dictionary, thesaurus, and encyclopaedia in an accessible place was imperative for your child to complete homework assignments.  Now all your child needs is an internet connection and vast amounts of information is at your child's finger tips.  It is worth the investment to get a high speed DSL or Cable internet connection so information is more accessible.  Also make the investment of a quality digital flat panel monitor.  If your child spends lots of time researching, writing and reading on the computer it will save your child's eyes.

Reprinted with permission by:  math-and-reading-help-for-kids.org