When Reading Is a Struggle

Learning disability (LD) is an umbrella term for a variety of neurological disorders that affect the brain's ability to receive, process, store, and respond to information. Although the term has been around for decades, it remains confusing and controversial.

"The bottom line is that these kids may have trouble reading, listening, writing, spelling, and doing math, as well as recalling and organizing information," says Sally Shaywitz, M.D., co-director of the National Institute for Child and Human Development-Yale Center for the Study of Learning and Attention.

Shaywitz's team is one of several across the country that are honing in on the precise reasons for learning problems. "The field of neuroscience is exploding," says Dr. Shaywitz, author of Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Science-Based Program for Overcoming Reading Problems at Any Level. Cutting-edge imaging techniques allow researchers to peer into the brain as a child tries to read. These scans indicate that reading deficiencies are directly linked to faulty wiring in the way the brain decodes written symbols.

"In order to learn to read, a child must develop an awareness that the spoken word is made up of smaller units of sounds, and that letters represent these sounds," she notes. "In children with reading disabilities, the brain circuitry needed to do that isn't functioning normally."

One in five public school children — some 10 million — struggle to read, according to the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) in New York City. Learning disabilities can range from mild to severe and, although they affect each person differently, most fall into two broad areas:

1. Reading and language problems, including dyslexia (difficulty decoding language) and dysgraphia (difficulties relating to handwriting, spelling, and composition).
2. Information processing disorders, including auditory or visual processing disorders. Despite normal vision and hearing, kids with these disorders have trouble with language development, reading, writing and mathematical ability.
   What's more, some children may have more than one learning difficulty.

About one-third of those with LD also have attention deficit disorder (ADD), with or without hyperactivity (ADHD), which makes it difficult for them to concentrate and focus on specific tasks. The common denominator: Each child shows a discrepancy between his overall intelligence and his ability to learn in one or more of the traditional ways.

"A learning disability as an island of weakness in a sea of strengths," says Sheldon Horowitz, Ed.D, president of the NCLD. "They can't be 'cured' and they're not outgrown. They can learn — they just have to follow a different path."

What's more, just because a child is slow to read doesn't mean he has a learning disability. "Every child progresses at a different pace and developmental lags are perfectly normal," says Sue Korn, M.S., a reading specialist in New York City. Still, early identification and intervention can be critical. "The earlier a problem is diagnosed, the faster a child can learn the specialized strategies and skills he needs to compensate for his difficulties," Korn adds.

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