What causes learning disabilities?

Discovering that your child has been diagnosed with a learning disability can run fear and anguish through your body. As a responsible parent, you look to the medical community for answers. However, when it comes to learning disabilities, there are many topics and a lot of grey areas. When addressing the topic of what causes learning disabilities, you have to realize that mental health professionals stress that there is usually a combination of possibilities.

Diagnosing the type of learning disability a child has is a major hurtle. This will require a team of medical and mental professionals, working together to examine many factors. This is also a longer term process. Do not simply take the diagnosis of a pediatrician and put your child on a drug regiment. The type, level and severity of learning disability will be displayed in a variety of both physical and mental symptoms. Also, do not equate a learning disability with the lack of intelligence. Many children with a learning disability have above average intelligence. They just learn differently.

The causes of learning disabilities run the gamut. The first thing you need to do is examine if this could be hereditary. Are there similar symptoms on one or both sides of the family? In our case, it was my husband’s family. They all exhibited varying symptoms that are associated with learning disabilities. Many of his family are bright, witty, and are entrepreneurs.

When asking the question what causes learning disabilities, you will also want to examine environmental and pre and post natal conditions. Throughout the years, the medical community has tried to locate some of the contributing factors to learning disabilities: everything from smoking, alcohol, drugs, the ingestion of lead-based products and problems during birth have all been included. While they indicate that the brain disturbances usually begin at birth, in many situations, this is not the case. Normal, happy and healthy babies sometimes begin exhibiting abnormal or completely different behavior after their first set of vaccinations or baby shots. The government, pharmaceutical companies and general medical community insists that they have a plethora of proof that the vaccinations are not related to any learning disability. Two areas of discussion remain open for explanation: Why untested and unnecessary chemical additives were included in the shots and why the percentage of children with learning disabilities has progressively risen during the time period that these chemicals were included.

The child that has a learning disability will need special attention both at home and in school. Their brains are designed to learn in a different capacity than others and therefore the teaching processes must be adjusted to their needs. It will also be important to reinforce good self-esteem for the child. While teachers can help in the learning process, it is the family and community that will give the child the self-esteem needed to progress through life in a positive manner. In mild cases, the learning disabled child can attend regular classes. However, if you try to send a child with more severe learning problems to a standard class, you are setting him or her up for a fall. They will not be able to keep up with the rest of the class and this can result in problems with their peers, ridicule and possible failure. Sending the child to a special educational class has its own difficulties. Since many school systems place all children with disabilities in the same classroom environment, the child will be included with other children that have physical, mental, emotional, behavioral and learning disabilities. This can send the wrong message to the child.

The information supplied in this article is not to be considered as medical advice and is for educational purposes only.