What Is the Connection Between a Learning Disability and Communication?

The problem of children with learning disabilities (LD) has received widespread attention in China in the past ten years. This is because the incidence of this disease in children accounts for about 6%, and it brings a lot of trouble and pain to the children's own study and life, and also brings many problems, burdens and helplessness to families and schools. China is a big country for children. Today, when education and knowledge are valued, children s problems in learning and cognition have become the focus of attention from families, schools, medical care, and society. Recognize and be able to take targeted prevention, intervention and health measures.

Children with learning disabilities

Chinese name: Children with learning disabilities
Short name: LD

Country: China
Ratio: 4: 1

The typical learning disability of children is different from what we usually talk about, which may be caused by a variety of congenital or acquired causes. The term "learning disability" here is relatively narrow, and generally refers to a state in which children with normal intelligence have one or more learning difficulties in reading, writing, spelling, expression, and calculation. The medical community tends to believe that the learning difficulties exhibited by such children are related to a dysfunction of the central nervous system. Clinical observations have found that these children are not blind, deaf, dumb, or mentally retarded (individual intelligence levels are at a critical level), and receive normal education, or may be accompanied by some emotional and behavioral problems.

In fact, children with learning disabilities have been observed and reported by some pediatricians in Europe as early as the middle and late 19th century. They found that some children had normal intelligence but could not read the article, otherwise they were no different from normal children of the same age. In the following nearly a century of research, researchers from many disciplines have been involved in the exploration of this problem, and many disease names related to or related to learning disabilities have appeared, such as "pure word blindness", "congenital word blindness", and "incompetent reading "Dyslexia", "developmental language disorder", "writing disorder", "calculation disorder", "minor brain injury", "Strauss syndrome", "minor brain dysfunction (MBD)", etc. After entering the 1970s, these names were gradually eliminated, and they were basically standardized into the diagnostic standard ICD-10 of the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) and the diagnostic standard DSM-4 of the American Medical Association, which are collectively referred to as special learning disabilities. . However, at present, there are still different naming and diagnostic definitions at home and abroad.

Due to different research ages and different research angles, the reports on the incidence of children with learning disabilities vary widely. In summary, domestic and foreign reports are mostly between 3% -10%. There are significantly more males than females in this category, with a ratio of about 4: 1. Studies in the medical community have found that the pathogenesis of such learning disability problems is genetics, abnormalities in brain structure (commonly referred to as "ectopic cortex"), abnormalities in left and right hemisphere symmetry, mild brain dysfunction, and abnormalities in mental structure. related. The occurrence of these conditions is related to the adverse factors encountered by children before birth (such as maternal smoking, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, intranatal malnutrition, and fetal nerve damage caused by various reasons), post-brain trauma, birth injury, and low birth weight due to premature birth. , Asphyxia, neonatal jaundice, certain infectious diseases, heavy metal (such as lead) poisoning and other factors. Some children are born with biological and neuropsychological fragility, are more susceptible to acquired adverse factors and lack tolerance, which also leads to the occurrence of this disease. It has also been mentioned that dyslexia (a type of learning disorder) is high among children in English-speaking countries, while children with dyslexia are less likely to have reading or writing problems in Chinese-speaking countries and regions. Therefore, it is believed that children's written language begins with learning Pinyin characters, which can easily lead to learning difficulties, while learning hieroglyphs (such as Chinese characters) is not the case. However, controversy in this area is still very large.

As mentioned above, children with high risk factors at birth are prone to learning disabilities. They tend to be active and cry early, sensitive to external stimuli, and prone to overreaction. Mothers may find it difficult to raise them, and children may be reluctant to be hugged by their mother and like to play alone. Some may walk early, but the gait and movement always disturb the mother. Poor parent-child relationship may lead to a decrease in mother-child language and emotional communication, which in turn affects children's language development and emotional differentiation. Activeness and excitement can make many mothers feel difficult to nurture, which can easily lead to emotional neglect or / and even abuse. Into early childhood, some language development problems occur at different levels, such as slow speech, hair scratching, nail biting, throwing things, crying, aggressive tendency, lack of purpose, excessive response to stimuli, poor partnering, language understanding and expression Missing etc. This makes it difficult for children to adapt to the group, imbalanced cognitive development or interest in something in a narrow field, and lack of attention to the activities of others. By the preschool age, more obvious cognitive biases appear, such as poor visual cognition, difficulty in coordinating movement, clumsy fine movements, and difficulty in communication and writing.

Difficulties mainly in general cognitive and special learning skills.

It should be determined according to the age, type, degree, clinical manifestations and psychological evaluation results of Indian children. The general principles are based on acceptance, understanding, support and encouragement, in order to improve the poor self-awareness of Indian children, enhance their self-confidence and motivation for learning. According to their cognitive characteristics, we adopt targeted education and treatment, and try to get the cooperation of parents and schools as much as possible. Various treatments have been applied to such children to date. However, the recognized effective methods are mainly therapeutic education, drug therapy and psychotherapy, and the comprehensive application is more effective. In the implementation of correction, adhere to the principle of individualization, and avoid high starting points, overload training, and timely effect / psychological evaluation to adjust the later training.

The specific methods of intervention are as follows.

Choosing the right treatment or training for children with learning disabilities

These children have poor self-awareness, lack of self-confidence, and tend to give up efforts. The treatment education plan should be determined according to its cognitive characteristics and development level. The premise is to understand and accept them, strengthen their self-confidence, and prevent their low self-evaluation. Particular attention is paid to its susceptibility to failure. Overloaded training and correction has no harm but no benefit, so avoid high-starting and overloaded training. Require comprehensive treatment, strive for family and school coordination, and always require parental involvement and involvement.

Children with learning disabilities are patient and persistent

The behaviors and discomforts of children with learning disabilities are often "frozen, not a day cold", and some even persist into adulthood. Therefore, you should be patient and avoid rushing to achieve success.

Early diagnosis and early treatment of learning disabilities in children

The purpose is to prevent secondary disorders such as loss of self-confidence, low self-evaluation, and emotional disorders due to the lack of basic learning abilities. Early understanding of children with abnormal fertility history, timely manual developmental evaluation and balanced exercise training for such children, and for those at high risk (such as premature and low birth weight infants, dystocia, children with a history of high fever and convulsions, children with epilepsy, history of birth injury Parents such as children, children with difficult temperament, etc.) provide timely consultation and guidance.

Prevention of learning disabilities in children

The causes of children's learning disabilities are many and complex, and it is not easy to prevent all causes of illness. However, many perinatal incentives have been identified, and some can be "prevented before they occur." If early diagnosis and early intervention can be made after birth, the effect of "doing more with less" can also be obtained.

Corrective training for children with learning disabilities in school or home

Hand-eye coordination training: such as elimination experiments, tactile recognition training, computer operation training, sign language training, visual movement training, calligraphy training, sports, etc .;

Visual analysis training: half-field quick-view training, Neker cube recognition, dot map positioning training, structural map discrimination training, overlapping structure recognition, direction recognition training, object volume area judgment training, etc .;

Structured training: such as perceptual training, visual understanding training, computer training, writing training, meaning understanding training, correct pronunciation training, attention (self-control) training, etc .;

Sensory integration training.

Interventions for Children with Learning Disabilities Healthcare

Conventional procedures for health care interventions include: (1) Development of individual education plans (1EP). (2) Conduct individual guidance programs. (3) Establish special education classes in ordinary schools. (4) Education and training of the concept of time. (5) Mid-term effect evaluation.

Specific correction methods include: (1) sensory integration therapy. (2) Behavior therapy. (3) Positive and negative reinforcement. (4) Game therapy. (5) Social skills training. (6) Understanding rule training. (7) Structured education and training.

There is no special medicine for drug treatment. Oral treatments such as brain rehabilitation, brain rehabilitation, and butylated aminobutyric acid are usually given. Those with attention deficit hyperactivity can take central stimulants such as Ritalin and phenytoin; those with impulsive and aggressive behaviors can be given carbamazepine or low-dose antipsychotics. There are also reports that taking large doses of vitamins and supplementing trace elements such as iron and zinc, but the effect is still inconclusive. Should be strengthened to prevent lead poisoning in children and avoid eating foods containing additives, pigments and preservatives.

Children with Learning Disability Movement Therapy

If diagnosed with dyslexia, difficulty coordinating movements, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or related symptoms, it is likely that the cerebellum is retarded

The children's guide program is directed at the root cause of learning difficulties-stunting of the cerebellum, and the automatic mechanism of stimulating the cerebellum with exercise to improve the efficiency of brain management of specific areas such as reading, writing, attention, and movement coordination. There will be no regression. This possibility of changes in the physiological characteristics of the brain is called "neuroplasticity of the brain."