Specific Learning Disabilities

Specific learning disabilities (SLD) affect a person's ability to receive, process, store, and retrieve information — showing up as difficulty with specific academic skills despite adequate teaching and intact intelligence. They affect roughly 5–15% of school-going children. An SLD cannot be "cured," but with timely intervention and support, children with learning disabilities can succeed in school.

Dyslexia (reading)

From Greek "dys" (poor) + "lexis" (words): difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and how they relate to letters and words.

• Signs: re-reading to understand; slow reading/writing; confusing visually similar words (cat/cot); spelling difficulties; trouble telling left from right; forgetting words; difficulty following instructions; poor concentration.
• Causes: highly genetic — a child with one dyslexic parent has a 30–50% chance of inheriting it; differences in brain structure/function/chemistry ("neurodivergent" brain development); prematurity/low birth weight; prenatal exposure to nicotine, drugs, alcohol; maternal infections during pregnancy.
• Treatment: lifelong, no cure; with proper help most dyslexics learn to read and write well. Early identification is key; the proven approach is multisensory structured language teaching — systematic, explicit, engaging hearing + seeing + touching at the same time (e.g., the Orton–Gillingham family of methods).

Dysgraphia (writing)

A neurological disorder where writing is distorted or incorrect — trouble with the mechanics of getting language onto paper.

• Signs: difficulty copying words; trouble forming letters and shapes; tight, awkward, or painful pencil grip; difficulty staying on the line or in margins; a pronounced gap between spoken understanding and written output; trouble with sentence structure and grammar rules.
• Causes: brain injury, developmental disorders, neurological and genetic factors.
• Treatment: cognitive rehabilitation; more practice writing with pen and paper (not just typing); speech/language therapy can help communication skills.

Dyscalculia (math)

A learning disorder disrupting the ability to understand numbers and math-related concepts; severe difficulty learning math concepts and computations.

• Signs: difficulty counting backwards; trouble remembering basic math facts; slow calculations; weak mental arithmetic; poor number sense and estimation; difficulty with place value; addition as the default operation; high math anxiety.
• Causes: genetics (often runs in families); brain injury (acquired dyscalculia); prenatal alcohol exposure, prematurity, low birth weight; differences in the brain areas linked to learning and memory.
• Treatment: special education plus parent home strategies — visual aids, concrete real-life examples, graphing paper, math games, drawing pictures of word problems, diagrams.

Dyspraxia (motor planning)

From Greek "dys" (difficulty) + "praxis" (movement): a brain-based motor disorder affecting fine and gross motor skills, motor planning, and coordination.

• Signs: messy eating and drinking; temper tantrums; low physical fitness; short attention span; trouble following instructions; lack of organizational skills; difficulty learning new skills.
• Causes: parts of the brain failing to mature properly during development — atypical brain development.
• Treatment: perceptual-motor training (improving language, visual, movement, and auditory skills); speech and language therapy (assessing speech); occupational therapy (observing everyday activities at school and home). This is the condition in this list with the strongest occupational therapy connection.

Dysphasia / Aphasia (language processing)

Damage to the parts of the brain that control language, making it hard to read, write, comprehend, or produce language.

• Signs: inability to comprehend language; inability to pronounce (not due to muscle paralysis or weakness); inability to form words; inability to read and write; limited verbal output.
• Causes: brain injury or stroke; progressive forms from brain tumors, infection, or dementia; transient forms from epilepsy or migraine.
• Treatment: some cases recover without treatment (e.g., transient ischemic attack); for most, recovery is slow and incomplete. Aphasia therapy works on three tracks: using remaining language abilities, restoring language, and compensating with other communication methods (e.g., AAC).

Parent takeaways

• SLD is not low intelligence. The disorders affect specific academic skills and information processing; a bright child can absolutely have one.
• Overlap with other conditions: SLD co-occurs with ADHD and autism at elevated rates; speech and language delays in preschool predict later reading/writing disorders; the "not trying" framing is wrong — the disorder affects how the child takes in and processes information.
• School is the doorway: IEPs and 504 plans formalize support; early identification is the strongest lever.

Not medical advice. This is a plain-language summary for orientation. Evaluations for suspected learning disabilities come from school psychologists and specialists; treatment plans are built with the school team and, where relevant, speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists.