Psychologists define learning disabilities as disorders that reduce a person's intellectual ability, especially in areas regarding mathematical calculation, attention, written, and spoken language (Fletcher et al., 2018) . Statistics show that about eight to ten percent of children in the United States experience at least one type of learning disability in the course of their childhood (Peijnenborgh et al., 2016) . If not detected and treated early, learning disabilities can lead to a lifelong condition that limits a child's ability to excel in school, household tasks, social situations, personal care, or manage money when they grow up. However, the disorder is not limited to children alone but also affects adults. This paper will strive to analyze specific categories of learning disabilities and their symptoms, causes, its implications in a person’s life, and various ways to manage the condition to improve reading, writing, and socialization skills.
Causes of Learning Disabilities
Most learning disorders are inherited when genes that affect the development of the brain are passed from mother to child during birth, prenatally, or early childhood. Fragile X is a typical example of an inherited genetic condition that interferes with the learning of basic skills and also higher-level skills in an individual, such as time planning or organization ( McGregor et al., 2016) . Psychologists also assert that chromosome abnormalities such as Down syndrome or Turner syndrome are also some common causes of learning disorders. However, learning disorders can also result from a combination of neurobiological factors that affect the cognitive processes related to learning. Such factors include contact with damaging material like radiation, lack of mental stimulation in early life, a debilitating illness or injury in early childhood, or a mother’s drinking during pregnancy (Shankweiler et al., 2015) . Premature birth and illness during pregnancy are also some other causative factors of learning disorders.
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Categories of Learning Disabilities and Symptoms
Even though it is difficult to diagnose mild learning disabilities, the Known types include dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, apraxia of speech, and nonverbal learning disorder. Dyslexia affects learning and related language-based processing skills. Individuals that suffer from dyslexia face difficulties related to word recognition, spelling, and comprehension ( Fletcher et la., 2018) . Though the severity of dyslexia can vary in each individual, common symptoms experienced include challenges in maintaining reading fluency, recalling what has been read, or decoding information. Dysgraphia, on the other hand, affects inhibits a person's handwriting ability. People suffering from dysgraphia disability are likely to exhibit observable symptoms, such as illegible handwriting, inconsistent spacing, as well as poor spelling ( Pullen et al., 2017) .
Dyscalculia is a learning disability that affects a person’s ability to understand mathematical facts and comprehend numbers or math symbols. Therefore, the affected individuals often struggle to tell time, memorize and organize numbers, and experience difficulty with counting ( Pullen et al., 2017) . People suffering from apraxia speech have trouble saying what they intend to say coherently. People who persistently stammer are said to be suffering from apraxia speech. Another prevalent learning disability affecting people is a nonverbal learning disorder. Individuals with this type o learning disability have trouble receiving and interpreting nonverbal communication cues, such as facial expressions and body language.
For a specific learning disability to be appropriately diagnosed, the affected skills must be measurably below the normal functioning expected for an individual's age. The difficulty in learning should also substantially interfere with a person’s daily activities or performance. The symptoms also range from mild to severe and involve difficulty in one or two domains. People with Learning disorders are also unlikely to learn the skills affected unless they are subjected to intensive and individualized teaching (Grünke & Morrison, 2016 ). Learning disabilities should, however, not be confused with intellectual disabilities because individuals with learning disorders often exhibit above average or average intelligence.
Impact on a Person’s Life
Individuals with learning disabilities are slow in learning specific life skills compared to other people. People with such learning disorders may thus end up needing occasional extra support in certain aspects of their lives. Such individuals also end up leading isolated lives by living alone or traveling independently ( Grünke & Morrison, 2016) . Support offered depends upon the type of disability and severity of the symptoms. For instance, those with complex and severe symptoms may need extensive daily or hourly support to help them perform basic life skills, such as eating and dressing. Failure to provide the required support limits the affected individuals from living full and meaningful lives. Individuals affected by the disorder may thus end up face problems in gaining independence, access recreational activities, of developing fruitful friendships and relationships ( McGregor et al., 2016).
Treatment
Learning disabilities are permanent and lifelong challenges and thus cannot be cured or fixed using conventional medicine or therapy. However, the severity of the specific types of learning disorders can be managed using special education. Educators providing exceptional education support to affected individuals should teach learning skills aimed at expanding existing positive learning abilities and correct for disabilities (Peijnenborgh et al., 2016 ). Some of the teaching methods used by educators to assess affected individuals include audio recorders, audiobooks, and word processing programs (Berninger et al., 2015) . The special teaching methods, however, differ based on the category of learning disability and the severity of symptoms. Therapists that specialize in domains such as speech and language can also provide therapy sessions to increase a child’s ability to focus and learn.
Conclusion
Even though learning disabilities affect millions of children and adults around the world, most of the disorders remain hidden because the affected person looks “normal” and be very bright and intelligent too. It is thus essential for parents, teachers, and governmental institutions to join hands and provide the needed support to alleviate the symptoms of the learning disorders. Policies under the United States' Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to offer free access to special education for children with disabilities are one of the effective measures taken to address the problems faced by children with learning disabilities.
References
Berninger, V. W., Nagy, W., Tanimoto, S., Thompson, R., & Abbott, R. D. (2015). Computer instruction in handwriting, spelling, and composing for students with specific learning disabilities in grades 4–9. Computers & Education , 81 , 154-168.
Fletcher, J. M., Lyon, G. R., Fuchs, L. S., & Barnes, M. A. (2018). Learning disabilities: From identification to intervention . Guilford Publications.
Grünke, M., & Morrison, Cavendish, W. (2016). Learning disabilities around the globe: Making sense of the heterogeneity of the different viewpoints. Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal , 14 (1), 1-8.
McGregor, K. K., Langenfeld, N., Van Horne, S., Oleson, J., Anson, M., & Jacobson, W. (2016). The university experiences of students with learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice , 31 (2), 90-102.
Peijnenborgh, J. C., Hurks, P. M., Aldenkamp, A. P., Vles, J. S., & Hendriksen, J. G. (2016). Efficacy of working memory training in children and adolescents with learning disabilities: A review study and meta-analysis. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation , 26 (5-6), 645-672.
Pullen, P. C., Lane, H. B., Ashworth, K. E., & Lovelace, S. P. (2017). Specific learning disabilities. Handbook of Special Education, 2nd ed.; Kauffman, JM, Pullen, PC, Eds , 286-299.
Shankweiler, D., Crain, S., Brady, S., & Macaruso, P. (2017). Identifying the causes of reading disability. Reading acquisition (pp. 275-305). Routledge.
