What does learning disability (LD) refer to?
Learning problems occurring in the absence of other obvious conditions
LD affects how individuals with average or above-average intelligence take in, retain, or express information.
In the DSM-5-TR, what two specific terms are used related to learning disabilities?
These terms clarify the broader concept of learning disabilities.
True or false: A learning disability is visible and easily detected in young children.
FALSE
Learning disabilities are often undetected in young children.
What percentage of children in the United States and Canada receiving special education services have learning disabilities?
One third
This statistic highlights the prevalence of learning disabilities among children needing special education.
Learning disabilities can impede a child’s ability to learn in which areas?
They can also affect work, daily routines, family life, and friendships.
Fill in the blank: Learning disability is a lay term that refers to significant problems in mastering one or more of the following skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, and __________.
mathematics
Learning disabilities do not include visual, hearing, or physical impairments.
What is a communication disorder?
Deficits in language, speech, and communication
This includes language disorder, speech sound disorder, childhood-onset fluency disorder, and social (pragmatic) communication disorder.
What is the main characteristic shared by all children with learning disorders?
Failing to perform at their expected level in school
Symptoms of learning disorders can vary tremendously.
What does specific learning disorder refer to?
Specific problems in learning and using academic skills
It includes impairments in reading, mathematics, and written expression.
Who first noted the unexpected pattern of strengths and weaknesses in learning during the late nineteenth century?
Franz Joseph Gall
He observed this pattern in brain-injured patients who had lost the capacity to express feelings through speech.
What did Strauss and Werner (1943) contribute to the understanding of learning?
Children learn in individual ways
This challenges the concept that learning is uniform and predictable.
What movement began in the early 1960s regarding learning disabilities?
The modern learning disabilities movement
It aimed to provide special education services for children not fitting the definition of intellectual developmental disorder.
What is the Response to Intervention (RTI) movement?
Views learning disabilities in terms of academic help needed
It emphasizes support rather than labeling disabilities.
Fill in the blank: Learning disabilities are often characterized by an unexpected discrepancy between measured ability and actual __________.
performance
This discrepancy has been a foundation for definitions of learning disorders.
From birth, infants selectively attend to parental speech sounds and soon learn to communicate with _______.
basic gestures and sounds
By their first birthday, infants can recognize several words and use a few of their own to express needs and emotions.
By their first birthday, infants can recognize several words and use a few of their own to express their _______.
needs and emotions
Their language development proceeds at an exponential pace over the next 2 years.
Adults play an important role in encouraging language development by providing _______.
clear examples of language
Adults also enjoy the child’s expressions.
Language consists of phonemes, which are the _______ that make up language.
basic sounds
Examples include sharp ba’s and da’s and drawn-out ee’s and ss’s.
When a child hears a phoneme repeatedly, receptors in the ear stimulate the formation of dedicated connections to the brain’s _______.
auditory cortex
This process helps infants learn to discriminate among different phonemes.
By 6 months, children of English-speaking parents have auditory maps different from infants in _______.
non-English-speaking homes
This difference is measured by neuron activity in response to different sounds.
By their first birthday, the perceptual maps are complete, and infants are less able to discriminate sounds that are not important in their own _______.
language
This rapid development of perceptual maps affects language learning.
Learning a second language after the first is more difficult because brain connections are already wired for _______.
English
Remaining neurons are less able to form new connections for other languages.
Once the basic circuitry is established, infants can turn sounds into _______.
words
The more words they hear, the faster they learn language.
The sounds of words serve to strengthen and expand _______ that can then process more words.
neural connections
Similar cortical maps are formed for other refined skills, such as musical ability.