The concept of learning is defined as the ability of a person to perceive information, to hold it by organizing it in the mind, and to use it when necessary.

If learning comes to mind in the first place in an academic environment such as a school, it also plays a role in areas of life such as social relations, emotions, and self-awareness.

Specific learning disability is one of the conceivable possibilities if individuals with normal or above-normal intelligence and without any sensory defect or damage, especially in the school environment, have low academic achievement compared to their peers. If the child is having difficulty in a specific area, such as reading, writing, listening, or math, this can be an indication of a specific learning difficulty. Specific learning disability is a neurobiologically based condition that is assumed to be caused by genetic and environmental factors. It is mostly diagnosed at primary school age and is frequently seen in society.

What Are the Symptoms of Specific Learning Difficulties?

Dyslexia, which is the most common specific type of learning disability, manifests itself in situations such as reading disorder, lowering the child's reading ability, letter-voice harmony, inability to match the shapes of the letters with their sounds, and difficulty in spelling. As reading plays a highly critical role in school life, this can significantly hinder a child's school success. Apart from dyslexia, disorders such as dysgraphia (written expression disorder) and dyscalculia (mathematical disorder) may also adversely affect school success. In such cases, the following symptoms can be seen.

Handwriting that cannot be read and progresses at a very slow speed,
Inverse, incomplete, or excessive writing of certain letters and words,
Duplicate spelling errors such as upper and lowercase letters or punctuation marks,
Not leaving any spaces between words or leaving spaces where they are not necessary,
Difficulty reading the clock,
Difficulty in arithmetic such as four operations, learning symbols, learning the multiplication table,
Difficulty in direction skills, confusing the right-left and back-front directions and direction words such as here and there,
Difficulty in organizing such as losing things frequently, excessive mess and disorder,
Difficulty in sorting skills such as confusing the order of days and months, letters in a word, the beginning and end of a story,
Problems with coarse motor and fine motor skills such as jumping rope, ball games, cutting with scissors, and buttoning.

This content was prepared by Yeditepe University Hospitals Medical Editorial Board.

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