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Learning Difficulties
Dyslexia
Dysgraphia
Dyscalculia
Dyspraxia
Working 
memory
Phonological 
Processing
Language 
Disorders
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Processing
Auditory 
Processing 
Disorder

Learning Difficulties

What do we know about types of Learning Difficulties (LD)?

A Specific Learning Disorder (SLD) is characterised by a persistent difficulty in learning and using an academic skill, despite receiving intervention to target the difficulty. This academic underachievement is significant and unexpected, and it is not the result of a more general difficulty, such as an Intellectual Developmental Disorder (Intellectual Disability), or other factors that may have substantially interfered with someone’s learning.

There are a number of specific learning difficulties that have the potential to impact on a student’s school performance:

  • A specific learning disorder with impairment in reading, often referred to as dyslexia.
  • A specific learning disorder with impairment in written expression, often referred to as dysgraphia.
  • A specific learning disorder with impairment in mathematics, often referred to as dyscalculia.

Click the tabs above to find out more.

Do students with specific learning disorders learn differently?

Students with specific learning disorders do not require an inherently different teaching approach in order to learn. Essentially, all students benefit from exposure to high-quality, evidence-based programs and teaching strategies, including explicit instruction and dual coding (the simultaneous presentation of verbal and visual information).

However, this is especially the case for individuals with specific learning disorders. The main learning difference observed between individuals with a specific learning disorder and those without is the length of time it takes them to learn particular academic subskills. Individuals with specific learning disorders often require more time and more repetition in order to master these skills.

It is also the case that although individuals with learning disorders have difficulty in specific areas, they will often excel in others.

Specific learning disorder with impairment in reading

A specific learning disorder with impairment in reading (often referred to as dyslexia) is the most common form of learning disability, accounting for 80% of all children identified. Problems with reading, and related difficulties in comprehension, spelling and writing are common for these children. Many people who have a specific learning disorder with impairment in reading also experience difficulties with working memory, attention and organisational skills.

Dyslexia can be defined as: 

… a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. It is characterised by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.*

When looking at identifying a specific learning disorder with impairment in reading, deficits in one or both of the following key academic areas are usually present: 

  • Inaccurate or slow and effortful word reading (e.g., reads single words aloud incorrectly or slowly and hesitantly, frequently guesses words, has difficulty sounding out words).
  • Difficulty understanding the meaning of what is read (e.g., may read text accurately but not understand the sequence, relationships, inferences, or deeper meanings of what is read).

What you might see in the classroom

Pre/Lower Primary SchoolMid/Upper Primary SchoolSecondary School
  • Difficulties with oral rhyming, syllabification, blending and segmenting of sounds in words
  • Delayed speech and language development
  • Limited spoken vocabulary
  • Poor understanding of letter-sound links
  • Difficulty in learning letter names
  • Slow and inaccurate word recognition
  • Inability to read nonsense words
  • Difficulty understanding reading material
  • Difficulties with tasks requiring reasonable working memory capacity - such as following instructions or remembering sequential information
  • Reduced ability to isolate and manipulate individual sounds in words
  • Difficulties holding verbal information (e.g. instructions) in working memory
  • Slow to complete literacy-related tasks
  • Reading is slow and laboured
  • Visually similar words are often confused when reading
  • Trouble decoding unfamiliar words
  • Poor reading comprehension
  • A lack of interest in or avoidance of reading tasks
  • Ongoing difficulties in working memory
  • Poor reading fluency
  • Reduced reading comprehension (may need to re-read material many times to comprehend)
  • Disorganisation and difficulties with planning
  • Limited working memory
  • Word finding difficulties
  • A lack of interest in or avoidance of reading tasks
  • Working memory difficulties may become more pronounced as the demands of schooling increase

 

Information reproduced from AUSPELD Understanding Learning Difficulties: A practical guide (Revised edition).

*This definition is the preferred definition of Speld Qld, DSF and AUSPELD, as well as the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Specific Learning Disorder with Impairment in Written Expression

Producing written text is a complex process requiring the carefully coordinated interaction between motor processes (such as handwriting) and many language and literacy processes. 

Difficulties in written expression can be linked to a range of factors.  These can include:

  • Motor coordination issues that make the process of handwriting more challenging – Dysgraphia addressed by an Occupational Therapist
  • Language processing issues that make it harder for students to organise their thoughts whilst writing - Specific Learning Disorder with an impairment in written expression
  • A combination of motor coordination and language processing issues. 

When students experience ongoing struggles with spelling and expressing themselves through writing, despite additional support and intervention, it is possible that these students have a specific learning disorder with impairment in written expression. This has been commonly referred to as Dysgraphia however the terminology used within the DSM-5 is referred to by our psychologists in their reports i.e. Specific Learning Disorder with Impairment in Written Expression.

  • Difficulties with spelling (e.g., may add, omit, or substitute vowels or consonants).
  • Difficulties with written expression (e.g., makes multiple grammatical or punctuation errors within sentences; employs poor paragraph organization; written expression of ideas lacks clarity).

What you might see in the classroom

Pre/Lower Primary SchoolMid/Upper Primary SchoolSecondary School
  • Reading appears adequate but difficulties with writing are apparent
  • Avoids writing tasks
  • Poor spelling
  • Difficulties learning basic sentence structure and grammar
  • Writing is slow and laborious
  • Difficulties are more apparent as demands on writing ability increase through middle and upper primary school
  • Process of writing is effortful and tiring
  • Poor knowledge of writing conventions, such as punctuation, as well as lack of automaticity in spelling
  • Difficulty choosing correct spelling alternatives
  • Sentence and paragraph structure is poor
  • Inconsistency between verbal ability and written skills
  • Difficulties writing at the same speed as their peers
  • Great difficulties noted in transferring thoughts into written words
  • Apparent gap between oral and written language skills
  • Knowledge and application of essay structure is underdeveloped
  • Lack of detail in written expression
  • Written output is limited with far less work being produced in allocated writing time
  • Writing and spelling skills do not appear automatic
  • Poor spelling, including lack of knowledge of patterns in words and morphological knowledge (affixes and base words)

Information reproduced from AUSPELD Understanding Learning Difficulties: A practical guide (Revised edition).

Specific learning disorder with impairment in mathematics (often referred to as dyscalculia)

A specific learning disorder with impairment in mathematics is an innate difficulty in learning and comprehending mathematics. Children who have a specific learning disorder with impairment in mathematics have trouble understanding numbers, learning how to manipulate numbers, learning mathematical facts, and a number of other related difficulties.

A specific learning disorder with impairment in Maths can be defined as:

… a condition that affects the ability to acquire arithmetical skills. Learners with dyscalculia may have difficulty understanding simple number concepts, lack an intuitive grasp of numbers, and have problems learning number facts and procedures. Even if they produce a correct answer or use a correct method, they do so mechanically and without confidence.

The severity of mathematical impairment differs depending on the individual. Although it can be argued that many of the defining features of a specific learning disorder with impairment in mathematics can also be seen in children who do poorly in mathematics, it is the degree of these difficulties and the resistance to remedial intervention that set children with dyscalculia apart from others with learning difficulties. 

When looking at identifying a Specific Learning Disorder with impairment in mathematics, deficits in one or both of the following key academic areas are usually present:

  • Difficulties mastering number sense, number facts or calculation (e.g., has poor understanding of numbers, their magnitude, and relationships; counts on fingers to add single-digit numbers instead of recalling the math fact as peers do; gets lost in the midst of arithmetic computation and may switch procedures). 
  • Difficulties with mathematical reasoning (e.g., has severe difficulty applying mathematical concepts, facts, or procedures to solve quantitative problems).

What you might see in the classroom.

Lower Primary SchoolUpper Primary SchoolSecondary School
  • Difficulties organising objects and sets of items in a logical way
  • Difficulties recognising printed numbers
  • Poor counting skills and knowledge of counting strategies
  • Difficulties using counting strategies (counting in 2's, 5's etc)
  • Difficulties with mastering number knowledge (recognising how many items make a set without counting)
  • Delays in using effective counting strategies for addition (counting all instead of counting on)
  • Difficulties decomposing numbers
  • Difficulties remembering arithmetic facts
  • Counting skills mastered but persistent use of ineffective strategies for calculation
  • Difficulty telling the time and recalling times tables
  • Delays in the retrieval of overlearned maths facts
  • Difficulties with inattention to numerical operator 
  • Delays in applying concepts of borrowing and carrying (place value)
  • Difficulties with measurement and understanding spatial relationships
  • Difficulties with multi-step calculation procedures
  • Increased anxiety and negative attitude towards maths
  • Difficulties learning maths concepts beyond basic number facts
  • Difficulties with mental maths
  • Difficulties finding more than one way to solve a maths problem
  • Delays in learning and recognising  maths vocabulary
  • Difficulties in reading and interpreting graphs, charts and maps
  • Poor perception of the passage of time and difficulties sticking to a schedule
  • Poor budgeting skills
  • Delays in spatial directions

 

Information reproduced from AUSPELD Understanding Learning Difficulties: A practical guide (Revised edition).

Developmental coordination disorder (dyspraxia)

Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) is a motor-based disorder that affects approximately 5% of primary school aged children. It is also known as dyspraxia or motor-based dysgraphia. Children with DCD have difficulties learning and performing motor skills and their coordination is below expectation for their age. These difficulties may be displayed as slowness or inaccuracy in the performance of fine and/or gross motor skills which compromises performance in activities of daily living and often interferes with academic achievement. DCD may be suspected if a child is unusually clumsy and/or is showing difficulties in learning and/or performing gross or fine motor skills. Children with DCD often experience  difficulties with speed and/or legibility of handwriting that may affect their ability to express themselves in writing. DCD may therefore co-exist with a specific learning disorder with impairment in written expression, but is differentiated from it by the emphasis on the motor component of the written output rather than the content. 

For assessments or further investigation please contact an occupational therapist. Speld QLD does not conduct assessments for Developmental Coordination Disorder.

Developmental coordination disorder across the school years

Pre/Lower Primary SchoolMid/Upper Primary SchoolSecondary School
  • Difficulty colouring or drawing in a coordinated way
  • Difficulty holding a pencil
  • Letters are poorly formed
  • Handwriting shows poor spacing and sizing of letters and words
  • Letter forms are frequently confused
  • Difficulty completing puzzles or building with blocks
  • Difficulty buttoning clothes, doing up zippers, and tying shoelaces
  • Difficulty using rulers and scissors accurately and efficiently
  • Delays in throwing and catching, hitting and/or kicking a ball
  • Difficulty negotiating playground equipment
  • Poor organisational skills
  • Difficulties planning and prioritising tasks
  • Reduced general activity levels
  • Reduced participation in sport
  • Handwriting is immature and slow
  • Slow and inaccurate in building models
  • Difficulty playing ball games (especially in teams)
  • Difficulty organising belongings when motor sequencing and coordination are required
  • Trouble managing a full school day due to poor strength and endurance
  • Poor organisational skills
  • Difficulties planning and prioritising tasks
  • Reduced general activity levels
  • Reduced participation in sport
  • Legibility and/or speed of handwriting is poor
  • Slow and inaccurate typing
  • Difficulty taking notes accurately and efficiently
  • Poor organisational skills
  • Difficulties planning and prioritising tasks
  • Reduced general activity levels
  • Reduced participation in sport

Information reproduced from AUSPELD Understanding Learning Difficulties: A practical guide (Revised edition).

Processing weaknesses are common in students with learning disabilities

Students with learning disabilities generally have difficulties processing information accurately and automatically, and many students have a weakness in working memory. 

What is working memory?

Working memory is the ability to hold information in mind and manipulate it as necessary for a brief period. It is a person’s mental workspace. A student’s working memory capacity depends on their age and innate abilities. Lower primary students are only able to hold, manipulate and recall a small number of items or ‘chunks’ of information (e.g. two or three items) whereas secondary students can deal with more (e.g. four or five items). Working memory capacity increases with age until approximately 16 years, although no matter what the age, there will be some students with larger working memory capacities than others. Working memory is highly correlated with both literacy and numeracy achievement levels and is resistant to change. Students with poor working memory at the beginning of their schooling are likely to have poor working memory as teenagers and adults. There are, however, a number of teaching and learning strategies that successfully support students with poor working memory in the classroom (speak to an Education Advisor to for more information).

Examples of classroom tasks that place a heavy load on working memory:

  • Remembering multi-step instructions
  • Performing mental maths sums
  • Reading comprehension
  • Constructing written expression
  • Spelling a long or complex word
  • Recalling details from a spoken passage or story.

Processing weaknesses are common in students with learning disabilities

Students who have a specific learning disorder with impairment in reading and/or written expression tend to have difficulties processing speech (phonological processing) and they may also struggle to process and recall the letter patterns used in written language (orthographic processing).

What is phonological processing?

Phonological processing comprises three areas of functioning:

  1. Phonological Awareness
  2. Phonological Memory
  3. Rapid Automatic Naming

Students who have a weakness in one or more of these areas are likely to experience literacy-learning difficulties.

Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

Many students with learning disabilities have difficulty attending to the sounds and oral language patterns within words. This ability is called phonological awareness. In the early years of schooling, students may show difficulties in:

  • detecting and creating rhyming words
  • breaking words into syllables
  • identifying the phonemes (individual sounds) at the beginning and end of words
  • isolating, deleting and substituting phonemes within words.

Frequently, older students who have an SLD with impairment in reading also demonstrate difficulties in some of these more complex phonological processes (especially in accurate and efficient phoneme identification and manipulation).

The ability to work with syllables, and to blend and segment phonemes in words, is critical to the development of good reading and spelling skills. Students need to learn that the sounds they are making when they speak relate directly to the letters they use when reading and writing. Essentially, we blend to read and we segment to spell.

Phoneme blending requires listening to a sequence of separately spoken sounds and combining them to form a recognisable word, for example, the sounds /sh/ /o/ /p/ form the word shop.

Phoneme segmentation requires breaking a word into its sounds by tapping out or counting the sounds, for example, “How many phonemes in block?” (four: /b/ /l/ /o/ /ck/).


Phonological Memory

The ability to hold on to speech-based information in short-term memory is called phonological memory. We rely heavily on our phonological memory when reading and spelling.

This skill is assessed by asking students to remember strings of numbers or to repeat nonsense words of increasing length and complexity. Students with poor phonological memory are unable to hold as much phonological information in mind as their age-matched peers. When recalling nonsense words, they tend to forget parts of the word and/or confuse the sounds and sequence of sounds in the word.

Students who have an SLD in reading and/or written expression often have weaknesses in phonological memory. 

Rapid Automatised Naming 

A skill that is commonly assessed in the identification of an SLD in reading and/or written expression is referred to as Rapid Automatised Naming (RAN). It requires an individual to quickly identify and name a series of common stimuli (e.g. letters, numbers, colours, objects). People with learning disabilities often take longer to name items when compared to their peers.

RAN provides information about an individual’s ability to retrieve words quickly and easily from long term memory. Students with a poor RAN score (and, therefore, difficulties with rapid word retrieval) tend to have weaknesses in reading and writing fluency. These difficulties often become apparent later in a student’s education.

 

Information reproduced from AUSPELD Understanding Learning Difficulties: A practical guide (Revised edition).

Other developmental disorders that can impact on learning

In addition to specific learning disorders, there are also a number of other developmental disorders which can have a negative impact on how a child develops academic skills. Two of these disorders are:

  • Developmental language disorder (DLD)
  • Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) (see Dyspraxia)

Developmental language disorder

Developmental language disorder (previously known as specific language impairment) is diagnosed when a student has persistent language problems that continue into school age. Difficulties with the comprehension and use of words and sentences to convey information and ideas are common for these students. Problems can occur in different modalities of language: spoken, written and/or signed. At school entry, approximately two children in every class of thirty students are considered to experience a language disorder significant enough to impinge on their academic progress. However, language difficulties often go undetected and may not be evident unless the student’s receptive (understanding of) and expressive (use of ) language is assessed formally. These students typically require additional help beyond targeted classroom support and should be referred to a speech pathologist for more detailed evaluation and intervention tailored to their specific needs. 

Developmental language disorder can be defined as:

… difficulties with language development that endure into middle childhood and beyond, with a significant impact on everyday social interactions, emotional well-being, behavioural regulation and educational progress. It is characterised by difficulties understanding and using words and sentences to express meanings, which are unlikely to resolve without specialist support.

It is recognised that developmental language disorder emerges in the course of development, rather than being acquired or associated with a known biomedical cause. However, a language disorder may occur as part of a more complex pattern of impairments that requires a specific intervention pathway (e.g. language disorder associated with autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, or cerebral palsy).

What you might see in the classroom

Early YearsPrimary SchoolSecondary School
  • Poor use of gestures
  • Cannot follow simple directions
  • Difficulties naming objects or pictures
  • Speaks using only two or three-word phrases
  • Has trouble putting words together into sentences
  • Reduced use of action words eg "doggy run, "push car"
  • Difficulties learning songs and rhymes
  • Limited engagement in imaginative play
  • Speech that can be hard to understand
  • Difficulties knowing how to take turns when talking with others
  • Difficulties learning the alphabet
  • Difficulties remembering and following spoken instructions
  • Difficulties understanding what is heard or read
  • Trouble retrieving specific words eg. uses 'thing' or 'stuff'
  • Difficulties in telling or re-telliing a coherent story
  • Incorrect grammar when speaking or writing
  • May look around and copy others' actions or written work
  • Difficulties with blending and segmenting of sounds in words
  • Poor turn-taking in conversation
  • Misinterprets jokes or the point of what was meant
  • Difficulties following playground rules
  • Limited knowledge of word meanings
  • Relies on simple words to express themselves
  • Word finding difficulties
  • Provides too much or too little information in speaking or writing
  • Trouble forming grammatically correct sentences
  • Difficulty understanding spoken or written information
  • Lack of detail in written expression
  • Avoids or may have difficulties starting class work or homework
  • Difficulties paying attention
  • Difficulties knowing how and when to use language in social situations

Information reproduced from AUSPELD Understanding Learning Difficulties: A practical guide (Revised edition).

Processing weaknesses are common in students with learning disabilities

Students who have a specific learning disorder with impairment in reading and/or written expression tend to have difficulties processing speech (phonological processing) and they may also struggle to process and recall the letter patterns used in written language (orthographic processing).

What is orthographic processing?

Becoming a fluent reader requires both the capacity to utilise sound-based decoding strategies and the ability to accurately recognise familiar letter patterns either as whole words (e.g. ‘was’) or within words (e.g. night). The ability to rely less heavily on sound-based decoding strategies is very much dependent on the development of orthographic processing.

Orthography refers to the conventional writing system of any given language and includes rules around letter order and combinations as well as capitalisation, hyphenation and punctuation. Orthographic processing is the ability to understand and recognise these writing conventions as well as recognising when words contain correct and incorrect spellings. Skilled readers are able to instantaneously access many thousands of mental representations of printed word forms or ‘legal’ English spelling patterns. These are often referred to as ‘Mental Graphemic Representations (MGRs). A critical prerequisite for this capacity is strong phonic knowledge. 

Students with weak orthographic processing rely very heavily on sounding out common words that should be in memory, leading to a choppy and laborious style of decoding. These students are also more likely to have difficulty applying knowledge of base words in order to decode a variation of a word and confuse simple words like ‘on’ and ‘to’ when reading.

Delays in orthographic processing are also linked to ongoing difficulties in letter recognition and letter reversals. If the shape and orientation of a letter is not fully consolidated and stored in visual memory, then students are more likely to make reversal errors and be unable to recognise when they have made a mistake. As skilled readers need to recognise words and/or components of words automatically, there is a heavy reliance on orthographic processing in the development of reading fluency. Delays in this area are likely to inhibit a student’s applied reading skills and ultimately affect his/her reading comprehension skills. In addition, poor orthographic processing will almost certainly result in both a high rate of  spelling errors and poor written expression. Students find it difficult to remember the correct spelling pattern for a particular word and don’t seem to benefit from the editing tool, “Does it look right?”. Rather they demonstrate the tendency to over-rely on phonological information, writing words like ‘rough’ as ‘ruff’ and ‘night’ as ‘nite’.

Information reproduced from AUSPELD Understanding Learning Difficulties: A practical guide (Revised edition).

Auditory Processing Disorder

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) describes the inability to process the meaning of sound. It is also known as Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD). Deafness does not play a role in APD and students with Auditory Processing Disorder rarely have impaired hearing: they hear the sounds clearly but can’t process the meaning of that sound. One characteristic of APD is that it presents itself inconsistently, so sometimes a child may struggle to decode a message that was easy to decode the day before. APD can lead to behavioural problems and poor academic performance.

Some Research suggests that repeated ear infections or glue ear in the early years contributes to auditory processing disorder. It is estimated that with each ear infection, the ability to hear and therefore process sounds from that ear is affected for up to six weeks.

Students with APD may display some or all of the following signs:

  • Delayed language development
  • Poor ability to listen effectively
  • Difficulty sequencing sounds of words
  • Trouble differentiating between similar sounds: such as /a/ for ‘apple’ and /e/ for ‘egg’; /e/ for ‘egg’ and /i/ for ‘insect’.
  • Short attention span
  • Difficulty following instructions
  • Poor memory for oral information
  • Inconsistent responses to the same auditory stimuli
  • Poor spelling, reading and comprehending
  • Behavioural problems
  • Social difficulties

APD is not curable, but is treatable most commonly through Speech Therapy, specific literacy intervention and through stimulation programs. Awareness of the difficulty, and good teaching practices make a significant difference to the achievement s of a student with APD in the classroom.

The use of an FM Sound System in the classroom, either as an individual, or with a built in system has been proven to improve students’ achievements at school.

Other Strategies include:

  • Sitting in the middle of the second row- away from noisy fans/ printers/ students
  • Gaining a student’s attention before giving instructions
  • Using short, simple sentences
  • Repeating and rephrasing
  • Supporting oral instructions with visuals
  • Multisensory learning activities

For an assessment or further investigation into Auditory Processing Disorder, please contact an audiologist. Speld QLD does not conduct assessments for APD.

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