Learning Disabilities Effects On Children and Students

Adam did not pass some of his subjects in the fourth grade while his mothers trust that this problem is connected to his low reading skill. Although that Adam has passed his reading skill, but he just only get the lowest grade – grade D or sometime get grade C. Due to this problem, Adam mother very worry about it and talk with the fourth grade teacher. The teacher show that Adam is not only the lowest – level reading group and he also have other several problem like difficult to spell out and the writing skill is poor. In spite of this problem, Adam does not have any difficult in the math because he always can get grade B in that subject. So, Adam mother did not understand because he studies very hard every night but still get the lowest grade. ( Bender, 2008, p. 5 ) From this situation, it show that Adam have infected learning disabilities. From 1977 and 1995, the percentages of students have learning disabilities from 1.8 percent increase to 5.8 percent. These show that numbers of students have learning disabilities have increased almost 200 percents in less than 20 years ( Kaufman & Kaufman, 2001, as cited in ” US Office of Education,” 1996 ) and 48 percent of those with learning disabilities did not have any people wanted to employ them. ( “Statistics on Learning Disabilities”, n.d. ). Learning disabilities will become a very serious problems if still did not overcome it.

What is learning disability? Learning disabilities is different with physical disabilities; it is a disorder that affects people that what they see, hear to link the information from the different part of the brain.(Kenyon, 2003) Learning disabilities cannot be seen, so it very difficult to detect someone that have learning disabilities and it is different from one person to another person which means that one person that has learning disabilities which may have different kind of problem from the other people that have learning disabilities. With a person that has learning disabilities, their brain working structure is differently with a normal person because it affected a person ability to speak, write, hear, calculate, and so on.

Until now, many researches is done to find out the causes of learning disabilities, but it still not yet sure as to the causes because people that have learning disabilities have different in their person brain works and how it process information. They just have three general reasons that cause learning disabilities. Firstly is inheritance. This can be happen because some is come through genetic factors that means that their parent has learning disabilities that causes their son affected on learning disabilities. Moreover, it is very easy to find people that with learning disabilities with parent, children, relatives, and so on. Learning disabilities is mostly people have affected because it did not like other diseases that easily to find out and most of people are did not care about it. Secondly is problem during pregnancy and birth. This can be happen because some of the mother may be influence to the other diseases that cause their child affected to it. Besides that, some of the mother that smoking during pregnancy that can causes the child learning disabilities because the cigarette that contains tobacco that can spoils the child brain system. Moreover, alcohol also can affect because alcohol is dangerous to the fetus’ developing brain and may distort the developing neurons. The child that low birth weight that below 5 pounds is also very risky because it may be very easily to get varies of problem including learning disabilities. Lastly is the incident after birth. This can happen because some of the parents are did not take care well of their children that may causes their child head injured. This may causes their child affected learning disabilities. Moreover, child that has not enough nutrition and exposure to toxic substance like cadmium, lead, and so on may causes the child affected learning disabilities.

Learning disabilities have divided into four parts, which is motor disorder, math disorder, reading disorder and writing disorder. Motor disorder is also call as dyspraxia that it have problem on the movement and coordination whether it is with fine motor skills or gross motor skills. (Kemp, Segal & Cutter, 2010 ) Until now, scientist still cannot figure out the causes of the motor disorder while the expert believe that is the nerve cells that control motor neurons is not develop well, so that the brain need a longer time to transfer and process the data. The symptom of the motor disorder is more easily found during the childhood, because they may take a longer time to do something like sit, stand, walk and so on. To treat the motor difficult, there are have three type of therapy. First is the occupational therapy, this therapy is an occupational therapist will observe the child how the child manage the daily activity in home and school then the therapist will help the child to develop some specific skill for the event that may be troublesome for them. Another is speech and language therapy, for this therapy, therapist will carry out some assessment of the child speech then help the child to communicate with other people more accurate and the last is perceptual motor training. This training is to improve the child language, movement, visual, and skill so that the child will not become stressful or frustrated in the future.

Math disorders is also called as dyscalculia which means that a person that difficulties to learning concepts of math. Children that have math difficult does not remember the math facts, confuse with the math operations especially the multi step process, difficulties in language processing that may affect to complete math problem solving, delay in counting, and so on. The cause of the math disorder is the language and the visual processing centres of the brain that causes child that have math difficult to solve the math question. Moreover, math disorder also may be inherited by their parents or can be a problem on the brain development during the pregnancy. To treat math disorder, we can work help them to visualise the math problem by drawing a diagram or picture then explain it to them to let them understand on it. Besides that, we can use math game to let them practice the concept of math. By using this method, it can teach them the basic fact of the math and lastly is the teacher and parent never give up, because people that have math disorder may need a lot of time to solve a question, so teachers or parents need to be a little bit extra effort to teach them.

Reading disorders is also called as dyslexia which means a person is having a difficult to read it and spell it. Reading disorder mostly happen during the early grade of schooling that it mostly obvious will show that the child was frustrated by the difficulty to read or spell out a word. This will causes the child become low self-esteem and depression and finally become unmotivated and will hate going to school. Besides that, reading disorder will cause a lot of problem like very difficult to identify a word, difficult to create a new idea or images, difficult to understanding word or vocabulary, and so on. What causes reading disorder? Reading disorder is causes by the impairment of the brain ability to send the images from the eye, ear to the brain into understandable language. Besides that, reading disorder also may hereditary from their parents. To treat the reading disorder, teacher can make the reading easier which means that by using flash card or tape in the classroom to help more easily to remember all the words, moreover, we also need to give extra time for child that have reading disorder especially during exam because they need a lot of time to finish and show to their children what they have learned. ( Bailet, 2009 ) Besides that, teacher and parent also need to help them to catch up all the words that they may be forgotten.

Writing disorder is also called as dysgraphia means that a person that difficult to say out something through writing. It generally prefer to bad hand writing. (” Dysgraphia,” n.d.) So, children that have affected in this writing disorder will need a lot of time to write out all the words. Most of children that have learning disabilities, they write out words that very difficult to read and understanding. Besides that, the size or the shape of the words will not consistency that means the words will from smaller to bigger or bigger to smaller. People that have writing disabilities will struggle when they need to use writing as communication with each other. Writing disorder can be happening is only having three reasons. The most reason is poor motor skills, motor skill is controlling our body muscle that support our movement, writing and so on. If a person that motor skill poor, he will be very difficult to have a good writing skill. To treat this writing disorder, multi sensory teaching method can be used by to teacher to develop the students skills through play, hand strengthening exercises and so on. (“Dysgraphia treatment for school age kids,” n.d. ) Teachers can let their student play practicing letter words in sand, jigsaws and so on to let them to develop the writing skills. For the hand strengthening method, can let the students have writing disorder playing tennis, badminton to strength their hand muscle so that they can have a good writing skills.

On the above mention all the type of learning disabilities that happen on the children or students. For the parent that their son or daughter that have learning disabilities, they can do something to help their son or daughter like praise them when he or she done well, because children that have learning disabilities are very less can do something very well. So, it can pursue them to learn their strengths and talents. (“Learning disability (con’t),” n.d.) Besides that, parents must always pay attention to their own children, it means that pay attention to their mental health because when their children was frustrated to the homework that they may feel that they need a lot of time to finish it. So, parent should console their children to make them feel better. Despite that, parents should find out a way that learning method is suitable to their child. This means that parent should know their children learn something by using listening, looking, practice, and so on. So that, parent can using their children learning method to improve their children strength.

While for the teacher, teacher should give more time to the students that have learning disabilities. Teacher should give a lot time especially in their homework, because most of the students that have learning disabilities, they need a lot of time to do their homework, so that they will not feel frustrated on their homework. Besides that, teachers should allow the students that have writing disorder using computer that have recognize speech or grammar check, so that it can help them to study well in the academic. Moreover, teachers can involved by teaching them by specially them writing until the students writing skills become more and more prefect.

In the conclusion, learning disabilities is become more and more common in the world. In United State of America, they are almost 2.5 million students are having special treatment for learning disabilities. (“LD Fast Facts,” n.d.) So, we must have the general knowledge about the learning disabilities and also type of the learning disabilities like reading disorder, writing disorder, motor disorder and math disorder. Besides that, parent should take more care about their son or daughter that have learning disabilities because they also will feel frustrated when they need a lot of time to finish their homework and the teacher also needed to help their students to have learning disabilities so that they can a lot of things. Moreover, teacher and parents should figure out their children/students strengths, so that teachers and parents can use it to improve their student/children strength or talent.