how many of us find out we have a learning interference?

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Learning Interferences or disabilities are a group of neurodevelopmental disorders that can significantly hamper a person’s ability to learn new things.

As a result, the person may have trouble with tasks such as speaking, reading, writing, paying attention, understanding information, remembering things, performing mathematical calculations, or coordinating movements.

Learning disabilities typically develop at a young age and are often diagnosed during the person’s school years, since the primary focus at school is learning. A significant number of children have some type of learning disability. 

For example:

14 % General population have Irlen syndrome

11.3% of children age 5-17 are diagnosed with ADHD

• According to The State of LD by the National Center for Learning Disabilities, 1 in 5 Americans, has some type of learning disability.
• 4 million children younger than 18 have learning disabilities in the United States. (Source: Cross River Therapy)
• In USA, the top most common forms of learning disabilities are: Dyslexia (5 to 17%), Dysgraphia (7 to 15%), Dyscalculia (5 to 7%) (Source: Healthline).
• 7.2 million, or 15% – The number of students ages 3–21 of all public school students who received special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (Source: National Center for Education Statistics)
  

However, some people are not diagnosed until they attend college or get a job, and others never receive an official diagnosis, so they go through life without knowing why they have so much trouble with academics, work, relationships, and basic day-to-day tasks.

It’s important to understand that people with learning disabilities generally have average to superior intelligence and are often gifted in fields such as science, math, fine arts, and other creative mediums.

The person is often bright and intelligent, but there may be a gap between their potential and the skills expected from a person of their age.

Nevertheless, some of the most accomplished and influential people in history have had learning disabilities, including Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, and Winston Churchill.

“Learning disability” is an umbrella term that encompasses many types of specific learning disorders, including:

• Dyslexia: Dyslexia is the most common learning disability, accounting for 80% of all learning disability cases.6 It is a language processing disorder characterized by difficulty with speaking, reading, writing, or understanding words. This can cause the person's vocabulary to develop at a slower pace and lead to issues with grammar, reading comprehension, and other language skills.
• Dysgraphia: People with dysgraphia may have difficulty putting their thoughts into writing due to issues with vocabulary, spelling, grammar, memory, and critical thinking. This condition is characterized by poor handwriting, as the person may struggle with letter spacing, spatial awareness, and motor planning. Dysgraphia can make it hard for the person to think and write simultaneously.
• Dyscalculia: Sometimes known as “math dyslexia,” this condition includes learning disorders related to mathematics, such as difficulty with numbers, concepts, and reasoning. People with dyscalculia may struggle to count money, read clocks and tell time, perform mental math calculations, identify number patterns, and apply mathematical formulae.
• Auditory processing disorder (APD): People with APD may have difficulty processing sounds because their brain misinterprets auditory information received by the ear. As a result, they may confuse the order of sounds in certain words, or they may not be able to distinguish between sounds such as the teacher’s voice and the background noise in the classroom.
• Language processing disorder (LPD): This is a subset of APD, characterized by difficulties with processing spoken language. The person may have difficulty attaching meaning to sound groups representing words, sentences, and stories.
• Nonverbal learning disabilities (NVLD): NVLD is characterized by difficulty interpreting nonverbal cues such as facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, and other nonverbal signals.
• Visual perceptual/visual motor deficit: People with this condition may have difficulty with hand-eye coordination and motor activities. They may frequently lose their spot while reading, demonstrate unusual eye movements while reading or writing, confuse similar-looking letters, have difficulty navigating their environment, and struggle to manage items like pens, pencils, crayons, glue, and scissors.

What Does It Mean to Be Neurodivergent?

These are some of the symptoms of learning disabilities:7

• Poor memory
• Difficulty focusing
• Short attention span
• Difficulty with reading or writing
• Inability to distinguish between sounds, letters, or numbers
• Difficulty sounding out words
• Tendency to put numbers or letters in the wrong sequence
• Difficulty telling time
• Confusion between right and left
• Tendency to reverse letters
• Difficulty grasping certain words and concepts
• Disconnect between words and meaning (i.e.. saying one thing but meaning another)
• Difficulty expressing thoughts and emotions
• Poor hand-eye coordination
• Delayed speech development 
• Disorganization
• Trouble with listening and following instructions
• Inappropriate responses
• Restlessness and impulsiveness
• Tendency to act out
• Difficulty with discipline
• Resistance to change 
• Inconsistent performance on a daily or weekly basis

While all people struggle with some of these things from time to time during their school years, people with learning disabilities tend to have a cluster of these symptoms that persist even as they get older.7

According to the National Institute for Learning Development (NILD), frustration is a hallmark of this condition, since people with learning disabilities often excel at some things but do very poorly in other areas, and are often acutely aware of the gaps between what they can and cannot do.

The NILD notes that people with learning disabilities often find themselves failing in certain academic or professional areas due to reasons beyond their control, or having to put in tremendous amounts of effort in order to succeed. This experience can be difficult, confusing, and demotivating, often causing the person to feel sad and disappointed.