Helping siblings cope with disabled brother or sister

How do you identify whether a child  has a learning disability? They may exhibit symptoms that differ from each other depending on their age and the area in which they experience learning difficulties. These can be issues with reading, mathematics, comprehension, writing, spoken language and reasoning abilities. Hyperactivity, inattention, perceptual coordination, may also be symptoms but are not learning disabilities themselves. The primary characteristic is a significant difference between a child’s achievement in some areas and his or her overall intelligence.  

Common symptoms in identifying learning disabilities can be listed as below. But not every one with learning disabilities will have all these symptoms but all people will have at least two or three of these symptoms to some level.

• Difficulty in seeing the difference in size, shape and color,
• Poor performance on group tests
• Reversals in reading and writing
• Clumsiness
• Poor visual-motor coordination
• Hyperactivity
• Poor organizational skills
• Confused by instructions
• Issues with abstract reasoning and/or problem solving
• Disorganized thinking patterns
• Poor short term or long term memory
• Lags in developmental mile stones

These signs of learning difficulties can differ with the individual’s age. In this regard below is the list of symptoms that an individual may show at different times in his life. Maybe one or more of these signs can be seen in children at some stage, but this can be normal and should be considered as a learning disability only if these symptoms are seen for a long period of time.

From birth to 5 years, the following symptoms could give a warning sign of learning disabilities. Speaking later than most children, pronunciation problems, slow vocabulary growth, unable to find the right word, difficulty rhyming words, trouble learning numbers, alphabet, days of the week, colors and shapes, restless and easily distracted, trouble interacting with peers, difficulty following directions, slow to develop fine motor skills.

From around 5 years to 10, symptoms can be observed like, slow in learning the connection between letters and sounds, confuses basic words, makes consistent reading & spelling errors, transpose number sequences and confuses arithmetic signs, slow to remember facts, slow to learn new skills, relies on memorization than understanding, impulsive, difficulty planning, unstable pencil grip, trouble learning about time, poor coordination, unaware of physical surroundings, prone to accidents.