The Activities for children with learning disabilities Help to complement treatments for dyslexia, ADHD, dysgraphia and dysgraphia.
Learning Disorders (TA) play a major role today, as they are one of the most frequent causes of school failure.
The prevalence of TA is between 5 and 15% of the population in children, so that we can infer that in practically all the classrooms we can find a child with one or another learning disorder.
But what are learning disorders?
They are disorders, most with biological and sometimes genetic basis, that condition a child with a normal level of intelligence.
These children, despite receiving adequate instruction in school, are unable to advance in any of the learning adequately, and their results in some subjects may be far from what is expected due to their age, their effort and their Level of intelligence.
TAs can affect children very differently or in different areas. They can affect global language, writing, reading or math. Also the difficulties of learning can be expressed in the form of misunderstandings, problems of attention and concentration, difficulties to organize, impulsiveness , nervousness ...
Do you hear any of these features? Then it is possible that someone in your environment has learning problems.
What learning disorders are the most common and what can you do to help?
Dyslexia
The dyslexia Is a reading disorder found in virtually all ethnic groups, languages and geographical locations and is mainly characterized by difficulty in reading.
What are the warning signs for dyslexia?
- The boy or girl was slow to start talking.
- Often confusions of similar word sounds. For example, use plurals when they do not touch, change gender words when they appear in your writing, invention of letters or exchanges of letters in words.
- Right-left confusions, up-down...
- Difficulties in finding words that rhyme with each other.
- Difficulties in the precise and fluid recognition of words.
- Difficulties in spelling or reading words that do not exist.
What can you do to help?
- Play with the child to games that help you know how words are spelled, and how letters sound when they come together. A good game would be Hangman .
- Play games that help detect the syllables of words and their pronunciation. For example, stringed words or invent songs together.
- Reading with the child will always help you learn how the written symbols sound and how they are grouped together. You can read yourself first and then read what you have read, so you will model. You can also ask her to read to you, while you monitor what is read.
- Read invented words. When we read a word invented, we are forced to decode in our brain every letter, its union in syllables and its sound. This is very good for children with dyslexia .
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Although the ADHD Is a committed disorder, the fact is that it is unquestionable that there are many children who present a common symptomatology, leaving aside if the causes are biological, psychological or social.
What are the warning signs for ADHD?
- Outstanding concern in all contexts.
- Usually leaves things halfway.
- Difficulty following the instructions of the elders.
- He talks a lot and can not identify when it is not appropriate.
- Emphasizes his impulsivity.
- You need to meet your demands immediately (for example, interrupts conversations, or games with your peers).
- He is distracted continuously and seems not to hear when spoken to.
- It tends to have everything in between, without any order.
- Great difficulty organizing your things.
- Difficulties in organizing time.
What can you do to help?
- Mark you routines. If you help organize your day and be aware of the time, these routines will gradually help to have a more orderly life. For example, you can make a weekly calendar together with the hours of getting up, eating, doing homework...
- Behavioral contracts. It is an agreement that you take together the child and you of certain behaviors that must be corrected little by little.
- Train the self-instructions. Help the child stand and decide what to do.
- Leisure time free. It is not good to limit the child constantly. Therefore, you should have a daily time to play outdoors, with other children if possible.
Dysgraphy
The writing involves many aspects: a process of planning the message, structuring and organizing the message to be transmitted, correctly spell the words, and the proper stroke of letters on paper.
Difficulties in writing can affect any of these aspects mentioned above.
What are the warning signs for the disciple?
- Writing skills are substantially lower than expected for their age.
- Your writing significantly interferes with academic performance and activities of daily living.
- Despite his"bad calligraphy"or his poor performance in writing, the reading level is within normal range.
What can I do to help?
- Review the position that the child takes when writing, since on many occasions The discography It causes a bad posture or a very strong tension in the muscles that go from the neck to the hand.
- The classic punch: We can give the child different drawings, lines and letters from less to greater difficulty to drill the contours.
- You can work by cutting paper with the aim of creating objects of decoration like garlands or doing exercises of origami from lesser to greater difficulty.
- Finally, we can teach the child to cross-stitch, with all that entails: Threading the needle, following a pattern and copying it on the fabric, aiming at the time of nailing the needle...
The dyscalculia
The numerical sense is an innate capacity that people have, and allows us to quantify the elements of our environment, as well as distinguish between quantities.
The dyscalculia Is a great unknown among learning disorders, although difficulties in mathematics are the order of the day and it is not uncommon to consider this subject as the difficult subject. In fact, it is one of the subjects with the highest index of suspensions.
Logically, not all the people who are costing math are discalculic. Surely, his difficulties with mathematics are due to unresolved elemental gaps. However, the difficulties of people with calculus disorder go beyond gaps that are unresolved, and errors occur in the most basic issues.
What are the warning signs of dyscalculia?
- Poor reading of the numbers, even though the school level is much higher.
- Changes in place of forgotten numbers or numbers. For example, write: 1.19 instead of 1.019.
- Difficulties in placing the figures in the correct position for the calculation.
- Do not distinguish between units, tens and hundreds, although the school level is significantly higher.
- Difficulties in saying if one number is greater or less than another. The quantities are not well differentiated.
- Difficulties in adding and subtracting"with led".
- Confusion between addition and subtraction.
What can you do to help?
- The most important thing is that you have great patience, since most interventions focus on repeating, repeating and repeating certain exercises until the child automates their learning. The important thing is to repeat the tasks over and over again and make them fun.
- Use games that relate numbers and operations to real life. For example, go shopping for candy together or school supplies, and the child has to take charge of adding the prices and check that the return is correct.
- The more senses are involved in learning better. So a good way to learn numbers would be, for example, with number 3: the child writes the number saying it out loud, then draws 3 apples, then collects 3 cubes, and finally gives 3 jumps. A good idea would also be to play Parcheesi, having to count aloud while moving the chip, and also doing the operations out loud.
How do children with learning disabilities feel?
The vast majority of children with learning problems have some emotional problems associated with learning difficulty (Cheng, 2016).
A common problem among professionals in psychology and education is that they treat the disorder more than the child. Therefore, we must not forget that the difficulties that our child has, may be having a significant emotional impact on him.
Then you can find what emotions and signs are the most common and what to do to be able to approach them with the boy or girl.
Anxiety
It is common for children to feel nervous and tense about going to school and seeing that they do not perform like the rest of their classmates despite their efforts. This can be really frustrating and often leads the child to reject the subject in which he presents difficulties or not wanting to go to school.
It is very important to keep in mind that Anxiety in childhood Is not shown the same as in adulthood, and can be expressed through tantrums, crying, calls for attention or disobedience.
That is why, you must always have patience and make the child see that you will always accompany him in his learning and that he should not worry if he can not keep up with his peers because each child has his own rhythm in all Things, and surely he has other skills than his peers do not.
Under academic self-concept
If we put ourselves in the place of a child with dyslexia who can barely read, accompanied by 4th grade classmates who already read without problems, we can imagine how many of the children with learning difficulties feel.
As an adult, it would be a good idea for you to focus the child's attention on his or her other abilities and to potentiate their development in that area. For example, the child we discussed earlier with dyslexia may have the reading problems we have discussed, but athletics may be very fond of being a great athlete.
In this way, your self-esteem will not be as school-based as it is in other skills you enjoy and are competent in.
Depression
Some of the children with learning difficulties are overcome by problems in school when they see that they can not improve, or that a great effort implies little improvement. It is very important that you pay close attention to the child with learning problems, since, like anxiety, depression in children is not expressed as in adults.
Children with depression tend to become overbearing, isolated, having behavioral problems in the classroom or at home, or presenting with physical symptoms such as persistent headache or belly pain.
The best thing for these cases is having a lot of patience and affection with the child. Talk about how you feel and why, and ask what you can do to make him feel better. Children, as children, do not stop knowing what happens to them or what they need, and we as adults have to make them feel that we are to accompany and help them.
What can you do if you suspect any learning disorder in your child?
The best thing you can do in the face of suspicion is to ask a professional, such as a psychologist or a psychologist. This one will know how to advise you, will tell you if your suspicions are based on dysfunctional factors, and if necessary evaluate the child to make a diagnosis.
If the practitioner finally considers that the child has a learning disorder, he will advise you on everything you need. In addition, it would be good if you made the diagnosis in the school, since it is necessary for them to take into account their difficulties and to help the child in the classroom and at school.
References
- American Psychiatric Association, APA (2013). DSM-V. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. (5 Th ). Washington, DC.
- Cheng, J. (2016). Understanding children's hearts and minds: Emotional functioning and learning disabilities .
- Tobolcea, I. and Dumitriu, C. (2010). The importance of psychomotricity in the apparition and development of language in children. Ovidius University Annals, Series Physical Education and Sport / SCIENCE, MOVEMENT AND HEALTH, 10 (2), 376-382.
- Reading remedy (2016). Symptoms of dyslexia. Summary of warning signs . Retrieved March 29, 2016.
- Andreu, L. Serra, JM. Soler, O. Tolchinsky, L (2014). Learning Disorders of Writing and Mathematics . Barcelona: UOC Publishing, SL.
- Andreu, Ll. Lara, M. López, A. Palacio, A. Rodríguez, J. Sopena, J (2014). Learning Disabilities of Reading . Barcelona: Oberta UOC Publishing, SL.