Language Learning Disability
- Significant difficulty in acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities
- Presumed to be related to Central Nervous System (CNS) dysfunction
- May occur across the lifespan
LLD in a nutshell…
- It is assumed that these children have normal or near normal intelligence
- There exists a “discrepancy” or “gap” between ability and achievement in some area
Characteristics of Children with LD: “They are many and varied”
- Six categories of characteristics associated with LD
1. Motor
2. Attention
3. Perception
4. Symbol** (pay particular attention to this category)
5. Memory
6. Emotion
So what’s a Language Learning Disability (LLD)
- Most children with LD do not have all of the characteristics listed above; variety exists.
- 15% have difficulty with motor learning and coordination
- Approximately 85% have difficulty learning and using symbols– Some professionals consider this group to have a language learning disability
Motor Characteristics
- Usually involves hyperactivity– over activity characterized by constant motion
- About 5% of children have hyperactivity.
- Nine times as prevalent in boys
- Not all kids with hyperactivity have LD
- Not all kids with LD have hyperactivity
- May also involve poor sense of body movement, poorly defined handedness, poor hand eye coordination, poorly defined concepts of space and time
Attention Characteristics
- Short attention span and inattentiveness
- Easily distracted by irrelevant stimuli and easily overstimulated
- Affects ability to learn and organize life
- Perseveration often is present –repeat utterances over and over, appear unaware
- NOT to be necessarily confused with a diagnosis of ADHD
ADHD
- ADHD itself is characterized by over activity/inability to attend for increased periods of time, BUT without many of the associated difficulties of LD
- It is most likely linked to an Executive Functions impairment of the brain in the area that regulates behavior– particularly impulsivity. Think back to our work on information processing/ executive functions…
- Children with ADHD can often experience problems in social interactions that is explained in part related to their accompanying poor social skills with may be attributed to their pragmatic difficulties
Perception Characteristics
-USUALLY COMPROMISED IN LLD (Not as severe in SLI)
-Perceptual Difficulties are related to perceiving stimuli that are heard, seen, or received through our senses
-May Include difficulties with:
~confusion of similar sounds and word/similar printed letters and printed words
~figure ground perception (isolate an auditory stimulus against background noise)
~Sensory integration difficulties. Ability to make sense of visual and auditory stimuli occurring at the same time. Gestures, facial expressions, body language, intonation, and verbal language work together to convey information
Memory Characteristics
- Short and long term storage and retrieval
- Think back to information processing/ executive functions
- These kids often have difficulty remembering directions, names, and sequences
- Word finding problems are common
Emotion Characteristics
- Emotional problems may accompany LD, but are not causal
- Often reaction to or accompany frustration related to situational difficulties
- Common descriptors: Aggressive, Impulsive, Unpredictable, Withdrawn, Impatient
- May demonstrate poor judgment, unusual fears (Owen’s example of shoes), or adjust poorly to change
- May be overly dependent on routines when language interpretation is required
Symbol— LANGUAGE PIECE— LLD
- All aspects of language, spoken and written, are affected (often the case with LD–85%)
- Remember, the difficulties are perceptual
- Even though these kids play TV/Radio loudly, squint and rub eyes when reading, etc., or may have concomitant hearing or vision problems, the problem is not sensory
I. Symbol Characteristics
- May struggle with conversational turns, and form and content of language.
- Synthesizing language rules is difficult, so delays in acquiring morphological rules and complex syntax development
- Morphological errors and syntax errors are present in both speaking and writing. Most common morphological error is omission
- Overall language development may be slow, resembling language of younger children but with even less use of mature structures
- Little preschool interest in books or language. Cannot follow a story.
II. Symbol Characteristics
- Word finding is a particular problem during conversations and narratives. This is a difficulty on its own and can be complicated by associated lower vocabulary of LDs.
- Greater time needed to respond verbally
- When young, often struggle with literal meanings
- When older, the struggle moves on to multiple meanings and figurative meanings: Think about the Amelia Bedelia
Amelia Bedelia
-Everyone loves Amelia Bedelia, the literal minded housekeeper! When she makes a sponge cake, she puts in real sponges. When she weeds the garden, she replants the weeds. And when she pitches a tent, she throws it into the woods!
“No child can resist Amelia Bedelia and her literal trips through the minefield of the English language– and no adult can fail to notice that she’s usually right when she’s wrong.”
III. Symbol Characteristics
- What happens at school?
- The language demands of the classroom are often too high for the oral language of these children
- Many end up in Special Day Classrooms
- Our assessment is VITAL
- Underachievement of these kids further underscores language-learning links
- Oral language skills are single best indicator of reading and writing success in school
