My friends son has been an average student. He is 9 years old. This year he failed in all the subjects except for math. The teachers got concerned and had a parent meeting. They think it could be a learning disability. My friends son said that he was unable to understand what the teacher is teaching or goes blank but when his tutor at home teaches he can follow. The parents are concerned too and want to consult him to a psychologist and the school is arranging counselling. My concerns are could it really be LD? Can it be developed in a later age since my friends kid is 9yrs old now? I was talking to to another friend n she was thinking it could be Attention Deficiet Disorder? Can anyone please comment and share their knowledge and experiences with me. I will really appreciate it.
THANX
Assessments
I like to think of all kids as having their own personal learning style. Some styles are compatible with a standard classroom, some are not. If I were you, I’d focus on trying to find out how your child learns BEST, and try to have them replicate this kind of assignment or environment in the classroom. I get concerned when we over-focus (forgive the pun) on the “diagnosis” when these diagnoses are pretty vague and subjective categories to begin with. For example, saying someone “has dyslexia” essentially means they can’t read as well as expected for their age and development. It says nothing about why, nor about how best to approach them. Now, if you need a “dyslexia” label for the school to take you seriously, by all means, get one assigned, but the more pertinent question is, WHY can’t they read as well? And equally important, what DO they do well, and how can I build on this to get them more into reading? There was one girl I tutored who so dramatically overused a phonetic approach in reading that she was completely unable to deal with any word that was outside the usual phonetic rules. I found out she had been to a lot of speech therapy as a young child, and seemed to see reading out loud as a similar activity, where she had to make the right sounds to the satisfaction of the adult, but where the meaning of the words was of secondary importance. I had to FORBID her to sound out words for a while to get her out of the habit (I simply asked her if she knew the word, and supplied it if she didn’t). For some kids, this would be a foolish approach, because they NEED to learn phonics and don’t know it. But for her, that was what was needed.
So every kid is different. I would try to focus on what you think will help and see what you have to do to bring that about. That way, instead of waiting for the assesors to submit their wisdom to you, you can be proactive in making sure the assessments you do choose to do actually attack the problem at hand.
Could it really be "can't teach"?
seekingknowledge,
If you’re going to seek knowledge, you’re going to have to recognize it when it arrives:
[i]My friends son said that he was unable to understand what the teacher is teaching or goes blank but when his tutor at home teaches he can follow.[/i]
He says he can learn. Teach him something, if he learns it, he doesn’t have a learning disorder. If he pays attention for a good while, he doesn’t have attention issues. It’s not difficult.
Sounds like he has BTRR. Boring Teacher Rejection Response. That’s perfectly normal for a healthy child. Don’t suppress it.
the only thing that you can do is get him assessed by a psyche…they can do a series of tests and determine if there is indeed a learning disability…