Table of Contents
What are Learning Disabilities?
Learning disabilities, often better referred to as learning difficulties, are conditions that make learning in school harder based on weaknesses in math, reading, writing, and attention. People with a learning disability will often have one area of strong weakness that does not necessarily affect their abilities in other areas.
Learning disabilities are very common and up to 1 in 5 students in a classroom may have some form of learning disability. Because learning disabilities are so common, they should be viewed more as a weakness in an area rather than a true disability or incapability to do something.
Many students with learning difficulties can find ways to make their unique brains an asset instead of a hindrance and can find great success even in their areas of weakness. Because their brains often do not process information the same ways as other students, they may have unique insights and find novel solutions for problems more easily.
Teachers should always remain vigilant for students who seem to be struggling in specific areas. Research shows that early interventions and support allow struggling students to find more flexible ways to solve their problems and get ahead of the learning curve. (Borovsky)
Below is a list of the five most common learning disabilities with tips for teachers to identify students in need in their classrooms. Clicking on the links below will lead to more detailed descriptions of the various conditions should teachers need more information for the investigations.
List of the 5 Most Common Learning Disabilities
It can be difficult to get exact numbers for any learning disabilities because different education systems classify them differently. Despite this, there is a clear trend in the types of conditions that seem to be most common around the world.
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is an incredibly common learning disability that affects a person’s ability to read. Students with dyslexia may have a range of symptoms, but the end result will be a greater difficulty with reading tasks due to lower speed and comprehension.
According to research, “Prevalence rates of dyslexia vary depending on how dyslexia is defined. Reported rates range from of 4% to 20%” (Knight) These numbers make dyslexia arguably the most common of all learning disabilities.
Students with dyslexia commonly struggle with:
- Reading at a level significantly below their grade level.
- Sounding words out.
- Not understanding or remembering what they read.
- Spelling.
Dyslexia can be a very disheartening learning disability as the person can be very intelligent, but due to their dyslexia, they may struggle even with the easiest of texts. It is important to keep up the spirits of students with dyslexia and encourage them that reading is an area that they can absolutely improve in as they grow.
Research shows that dyslexia is one of the most responsive learning disabilities to targeted interventions. The earlier the weakness can be identified, the more easily the supports can take effect and get the student back on track in school.
Students with dyslexia should be supported with audio texts occasionally, but not exclusively. Students with dyslexia need more support and care in their area of weakness, not a way to avoid improving themselves. When the purpose of the task is not reading comprehension, however, it can lift an unnecessary burden to simply give them an audio version of the text for class discussion.
For more detailed information on supporting students with dyslexia, teachers should go to this resource that gives a lot more information. The list of supports there will support the student to not only perform better at school, but also improve their reading ability over time in a safe and supportive way.
ADHD
ADHD is one of the most common learning difficulties teachers may observe. Up to 10% of children are diagnosed with some form of ADHD, but the condition is more prevalent in boys who represent 13% of the population with only around 6% of girls being diagnosed. (Bitsko, et al.)
Diagnosis of ADHD is still highly contentious with some feeling that girls are not being diagnosed due to different gender expressions and others feel that boys or both are overdiagnosed. Whether the current data is correct or scientists are still missing important clues, teachers at least have a clear set of behaviors to watch for in class.
Students with ADHD often struggle with:
- Sitting still for extended periods of time.
- Being easily distracted by noises, sights, and other students.
- Having disorganized work and patterns of explanation.
- Impulsivity, often being unable to wait to give answers and often speaking out of turn or at inappropriate times.
ADHD can at first be overwhelming for a teacher to deal with. Students will be regularly wanting attention and needing constant reminders to stay on task.
Despite these challenges for teachers, students with ADHD will often be their most enthusiastic participants during classroom activities. Teachers should keep firm boundaries but avoid crushing the excited energy that many students with ADHD bring to the classroom.
The scaffolds that students with ADHD will need are things to help them develop their memories, such as writing tasks in organizers, and strategies to cope with energy in times that they must be still. While students with ADHD may often struggle with controlling their energy levels, that does not mean they are incapable of doing so with proper support and care.
For more details on ADHD and a list of clear strategies to implement to support them, teachers should read this article. The low effort strategies will make the classroom a much more comfortable space for the student and teacher as well.
Language Processing Disorders
The term “language processing disorders” covers a very large array of issues that can stem from a number of processing issues at various stages in how the brain processes language. Language processing disorders come in two main varieties; expressive, which affects their abilities to process the language they are trying to speak or write, and receptive, which affects their ability to understand what others are saying or writing.
According to research from the University of Helsinki, “Approximately 7% of the population is expected to have developmental language difficulties.” (Laasonen, et al.) This high rate, along with the fact that language processing disorders is not truly a single condition, means that teachers need to be extra vigilant to catch the various culperates in language delay.
Students with language processing disorders often struggle with:
- Recalling what someone has said.
- Misinterpreting instructions.
- Not understanding language based jokes.
- Concentrating or listening in a noisy environment.
- A limited vocabulary for their age.
- Seeming shy or uncomfortable in social situations or when doing presentations.
- Finding “the right word” when expressing themselves.
- Making many simple grammar mistakes when speaking.
Language processing disorders can also be a very disheartening learning disability as students will be able to understand concepts, but struggle to show their understanding to others as the words get muddled up when they try to explain. When the student has receptive language processing disorders, they can feel like they are just slower than other students, when speed simply is not the issue.
Students with language processing disorders often still do fantastically during projects, and can clearly show their understanding when it is not bound up in a linguistic concept. However, because the vast majority of all school work is linguistically bound in some way or another, these students will need additional support to be able to overcome their struggles and compete on par with their peers.
Teachers wanting to read more about the various types of language processing disorders should check out this detailed breakdown of different language processing disorders and list of ways to support them in class.
Dyscalculia
Dyscalculia is a less understood, but still very common learning disability that affects a person’s ability to do calculations and understand mathematical concepts. Students with dyscalculia are not always bad at math per say, but struggle to understand with the highly abstract models and notation used in many math problems.
Prevalence of dyscalculia in a student population averages around 6% depending on how tests are given and how the condition is defined. (Keong, et al.) Though dyscalculia may seem to only affect a student’s abilities in math classes, their weaker numeracy skills can affect them in many classes including sciences which use statistics or even language classes where students must learn a counting system that requires arithmetic such as French.
Students with dyscalculia often struggle with:
- Doing simple math.
- Needing to rely on their fingers or other physical objects to count.
- Formulas and mathematical notation more than word problems.
- Understanding math concepts better when physically demonstrated.
So, while students with dyscalculia will often struggle in math classes, there are types of problems that are more or less difficult for them, depending on their particular type of dyscalculia. Many students simply need concepts explained using a physical reference or with language before they can even attempt to understand the physical notation of the same problem.
Math formulas, order of operations, and anything else that seems arbitrary from an outside perspective may perplex students with dyscalculia. Teachers should always ensure to make math concepts related to real world issues. This is true and helpful for students with and without dyscalculia.
For more detailed methods of supporting students with dyscalculia, teachers can refer to this article. While the supports for students with dyscalculia are often time consuming, they can help reframe math class from a pointless and frustrating daily torture to an interesting challenge to overcome.
Dysgraphia
Dysgraphia is a learning disability that affects a person’s ability to write their thoughts down clearly. Dysgraphia is often confused with dyspraxia, which is the struggle to write neatly and legibly. Dysgraphia is more focused on the mental processes of translating thoughts into a written format and less with muscle coordination issues.
This distinction is rather a new one, however, as previously, all data on writing issues was lumped together regardless of whether the issues stemmed from physical or mental sources. (Chung, et al.) Because of this, dysgraphia is one of the most difficult learning disabilities to quantify as definitions are constantly shifting to this day.
Students with dysgraphia often struggle with:
- Spelling
- Punctuation
- Prescribed written structure.
- Writing sentences that make sense.
Students with dysgraphia often use a more stream of consciousness style of writing and struggle to format their ideas into paragraphs and essays. While many are capable of writing sentences that make sense, it is often even difficult for some students with dysgraphia to have sentences that are not run ons or fragments.
Because their thoughts are not generally formatted into strict sentence structures in their heads, they may struggle to understand how to do this on paper. Teachers should focus on basics and drilling these crucial concepts rather than focusing on essay writing with these types of students.
Essay writing has a very limited application post graduation, but being able to write sentences and paragraphs with proper grammar and spelling is fundamental to being able to get almost any job. This does not mean that students with dysgraphia should simply not do essays, but instead, should often be allowed to speak their essays with the same requirements of organization and depth of understanding.
Related Conditions
Learning disabilities are not always defined using the same standards. The conditions below are commonly not thought of as true learning disabilities, but will often pose problems for students in their performance at school.
Executive Dysfunction
Executive functions are the processes in the active brain’s short term and immediate processing of information. Under this umbrella are things like working memory, self control, flexibility, organization, and task initiation.
Students with executive functioning issues often struggle with:
- Remaining organized, especially in a deluge of paper.
- Quickly getting off task or forgetting what they were expected to do
- Leaving work until the last minute.
- Turning in work with many missing requirements.
Students with executive functioning issues often are disorganized, impulsive, and heavy procrastinators. While these issues are not traditionally labeled a learning disability, they can equally impact a student’s ability to perform well in school and so should be considered along the same lines.
Teachers can treat these types of students often very similarly to how they treat students with ADHD. These students will need organizing systems like notebooks, apps, and other tools to manage their daily tasks and long term goals.
For more details on executive functioning, teachers can read here.
Autism
Autism, more properly called Autism Spectrum Disorders, is an extremely wide set of conditions that often affect a person’s social abilities and change the way their brain processes sensory information. No two students with autism are alike, and so each must be treated highly individually.
Students with autism often struggle with:
- Being very reserved and quiet.
- Understanding the emotional impact of what they say to others.
- Being obsessed with certain ideas, objects, or behaviors.
- Doing their best in unstructured environments with lots of change.
Despite the fact that the condition can range from students being completely non-verbal to students being language savants, there are a few common threads that teachers can use to help be prepared to help their students with autism feel more at home in the classroom.
While Autism can certainly affect a person’s ability to perform well in school, the issues are generally more of a social nature rather than an academic nature. Students with autism often fail to understand others’ perspectives and so may be a bit of a disruption to other students.
Conversely, they can also be disrupted by other students more easily as well. Because of this, they will often need more support and explanation for why rules are in place so that it makes sense in the way their brain is processing the logic. They also struggle with being flexible with changing plans in their schedule and need help dealing with unexpected situations.
For more details on the many types of autism, teachers can read this article. These clear strategies will ensure teachers can keep a safe space for their students with autism without feeling the need to ship them off to a corner “special education” classroom due to their behavioral differences.
Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety disorders are also not a traditional learning disability, but can have a massive impact on a students ability to do well in school. Unchecked anxiety can paralyze even the most intelligent students’ brains and cause them to leave total blanks even when the teacher knows they know the answer.
Students with anxiety disorders often struggle with:
- Doing significantly worse on tests than classwork.
- Being reserved and quiet, especially during more stressful times.
- Having a repetitive nervous habit like twisting hair or shaking legs.
- Attempting stressful things or sometimes even coming to school.
Anxiety disorders are particularly damaging for a students ability to work with others and give presentations. Students with anxiety disorders will often be “dead weight” in group projects and may outright refuse to give presentations.
Teachers need to take things slow for students with anxiety disorders. Trying to push supports or remove scaffolding too quickly, and the student may completely shut down and lose all trust with the teacher.
For more tips to help students overcome their crippling anxiety, check out this useful resource. While it may be impossible to take away their fear, teachers can help equip students with the ability to manage their emotions in healthy ways.
Helping Students with Learning Disabilities
Teachers that suspect that their student may have a learning disability should take the following steps.
- Look through the student’s past work to find clear examples of the area of weakness.
- Take these examples to the learning support faculty or school psychologist for further discussion.
- Discuss with parents ways they can help support their students more at home and brainstorm classroom strategies that work best for how their child thinks. (The word learning disability should be avoided during these conversations.)
- Take the advice of learning support, the school psychologist, and parents and create some mindful scaffolding based on the tools and suggestions in the detailed links in this article.
- Plan a time to revisit the issue and measure whether the interventions have been successful in improving the student’s abilities. If not, reconsider and reformulate a plan with discussion and further reading.
The most important thing to remember when helping students with learning disabilities is that they are not broken. They are not sick. They are simply built in a way that is not as advantageous for a school setting.
Learning disabilities are simply diagnosed by scores on a test and personal interviews with a psychologist, and not through brain scans. While many websites focus on learning disabilities having “no cure” this is disrespectful as there is nothing to be cured in these students.
They simply need to be guided to find ways that work for their unique brains to manage the world just like anyone else. Students with learning disabilities absolutely can improve and learn, even in their areas of weakness. Teachers should never allow students to completely skip or avoid tasks in their areas of weakness because they do not believe their student is capable.
All students are capable, the way they go about completing the task may vary from others, but all students should be held to a standard and believed in. This realist approach will help them more in the real world where they will often have to deal with things that make them uncomfortable and no longer have teachers protecting them in a bubble to keep them from experiencing any hardship.
Every student has their areas of weakness and their areas of strength. Students that have diagnosed learning disabilities or learning difficulties simply often have weaker weak areas and stronger strong areas, making them highly specialized for certain tasks.
Because of this, teachers should help create a base foundation for those extra weak weaknesses so that they do not seriously inhibit the person in the future, but also help the student to utilize their powerful areas of strength to gain confidence and find their place in the world.
Want more like this? Make Lab to Class a part of your weekly professional development schedule by subscribing to updates below.
References
Bitsko, Rebecca H., et al. “Mental Health Surveillance among Children — United States, 2013–2019.” MMWR Supplements, vol. 71, no. 2, 2022, pp. 1–42., https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.su7102a1.
Borovsky, Arielle. “Lexico-Semantic Structure In Vocabulary And Its Links To Lexical Processing In Toddlerhood And Language Outcomes At Age Three.”. Developmental Psychology, vol 58, no. 4, 2022, pp. 607-630. American Psychological Association (APA), https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001291. Accessed 2 Oct 2022.
Chung, Peter J., et al. “Disorder of Written Expression and Dysgraphia: Definition, Diagnosis, and Management.” Translational Pediatrics, vol. 9, no. S1, 2020, https://doi.org/10.21037/tp.2019.11.01.
Keong, Wong Ken, et al. “Prevalence Rate of Dyscalculia According to Gender and School Location in Sabah, Malaysia.” 7th International Conference on University Learning and Teaching (InCULT 2014) Proceedings, 2016, pp. 91–100., https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-664-5_8.
Knight, Cathryn. “What Is Dyslexia? an Exploration of the Relationship between Teachers’ Understandings of Dyslexia and Their Training Experiences.” Dyslexia, vol. 24, no. 3, 2018, pp. 207–219., https://doi.org/10.1002/dys.1593.
Laasonen, Marja, et al. “Understanding Developmental Language Disorder – the Helsinki Longitudinal SLI Study (Helsli): A Study Protocol.” BMC Psychology, vol. 6, no. 1, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-018-0222-7.
