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Math Tutoring for Kids Who are Gifted and Learning Disabled
It is easy to misunderstand a child who is both learning disabled and gifted. Mentally retarded, or “slow,” are the labels often mistakenly given to persons with learning disabilities. Because of these misconceptions, a child who is gifted and who is also learning disabled often experiences a very challenging life. Academically, the child may perform poorly, but more important is the potentially damaging psychological impact of being perceived by others as “dumb” or mentally deficient, despite possessing the unlocked abilities and potential to excel. The self-confidence required for dealing with these issues and progressing past them can be achieved through success with a tutor.
Intellectual giftedness is exceptional in its own right–this is what many experts fail to realize. Social deprivation and poor classroom performance are just a couple of the problems that are experienced by both gifted children and those with mental retardation. Also, similar problems can be caused by a learning disability. There are particularly tricky challenges if a child is learning disabled but otherwise gifted.
A lot of times, gifted children who have learning difficulties have problems in school. Their learning disability can lead to a decrease in motivation as well as difficulty in completing classroom tasks which may, as a result, mask their true potential. But in other endeavors, such as music or dance, the child may be highly creative and intelligent. An undiagnosed learning problem may also lead to the opposite problem: an otherwise gifted child may struggle in school due to the presence of a learning disability not yet diagnosed.
Why Supported Living Fails to Protect Vulnerable Adults With Learning Disabilities and Dementia
Improvements in medical technology and social care have led to an increased life expectancy for people with Learning Disabilities. People with Down’s syndrome have an increased risk of developing dementia. A significant number will develop the condition between the ages of 40 to 50.
In the UK historically people with Learning Disabilities were cared for in large institutions. The introduction of the Care in the Community Act in the 80′s led to the closure of the large institutions and people with Learning disabilities were placed in a range of settings such as Adult Placements (shared lives), residential care homes and group homes. However, these service provisions have made little or no preparation for supporting people as they grow older and in the majority of cases develop dementia.
To complicate the situation further there is now a huge drive by Local Authorities in England to place the majority of people with Learning Disabilities in supported living accommodation which is unsuitable for most people who go on to develop dementia.
Diagnosing Learning Disabilities – Can Vision Therapy Help Language Based Learning Disabilities?
When diagnosing learning disabilities, including auditory, visually or language based learning disabilities, the process can become complicated as well as costly for parents.
Parents soon find that there are a lot of professionals with a lot of opinions regarding diagnosing learning disabilities, dyslexia, brain impairment and a whole multitude of associated conditions. They need to appreciative that when it comes to diagnosing a learning disability, even the doctors agree that they often are not caused by one distinct problem, but by several problems, each overlapping and affecting the next. So if you have a child with a language based learning disability, there is frequently involvement from the auditory and visual systems, so that even in a mainly language based learning disability the other types of learning trouble should not be overlooked.
It can be quite invaluable to diagnose learning disabilities near the beginning in a child’s life, as it can severely benefit their school life and everyday life. In this day and age, with new advancements in technology and research, there are things that can be done, and therapies which can be pursued despite whether the child has visual, auditory or language based learning disabilities.
The chief emphasis needs to be diagnosing learning disabilities as ahead of time as possible, for the reason that if we can do this we can reduce how far the child’s performance slips behind that of their peers. Thus diagnosing learning disabilities in a preschool or prep child and helping them properly is far better than diagnosing them in a child who is in Grade 8, and facing years of catch up to get better their performance to that of the other kids in the class. Also, the long term detrimental habits, loss of confidence and loss of self esteem so often seen in older children can be avoided if we are diagnosing learning disabilities in children early in the school career.
