--Characteristics+of+Indiviuals+with+a+SLD


 * Characteristics of Specific Learning Disabilities**

//Information from Wisconsin DPI// Students with SLD have severe trouble learning or demonstrating academic skills in one or more of the following areas: oral expression, listening comprehension, written expression, basic reading skill, reading comprehension, mathematical calculation, and mathematical reasoning. Although the students often do well in some school subjects, they usually have extreme difficulty with certain skills such as decoding (reading) words, calculating math facts, or getting their thoughts into writing. As a result, they lag significantly behind their peers in these skills. Specific learning disabilities are believed to be caused by problems the child has processing information. In other words, while students with SLD almost always hear and see normally, they have trouble understanding or using what they see or hear. When someone suspects a student has a SLD, a referral for a special education evaluation is made. A team, which includes the child's parents, conducts the evaluation and decides if the child meets state and federal eligibility criteria for special education. **Each** of the following criteria must be considered and met in order for the child to be determined to have a SLD. > **AND** > A) Insufficient response to intensive, scientific, research-based or evidence-based interventions, > **OR** > B) Significant discrepancy or insufficient progress in achievement as compared to measured ability. > NOTE: The significant discrepancy (B above) component of the rule is only applicable until 11/30/2013. The IEP team may not identify a student as having SLD if the student's achievement problems are primarily the result of other disabilities, insufficient instruction, lack of English proficiency, or environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.
 * 1) Inadequate classroom achievement.
 * 1) Insufficient progress as documented by:


 * In addition**, the IEP team must decide that the child needs special education [|(PI 11.35)] in order to address the child's learning problems. If interventions or modifications can be provided within general education to allow the child to access the curriculum and meet the standards that apply to all students, the student may have the impairment of SLD, but is not eligible as a "child with a disability" who needs special education.

//Information from [|Maryville Schools, Special Education]// Researchers think that learning disabilities are caused by differences in how a person's brain works and how it processes information. Children with learning disabilities are not 'dumb' or 'lazy.' Most children with LD have average or above average intelligence. Their brains just process information differently than their nondisabled peers. When a child has a learning disability, he or she may exhibit some of the following characteristics :
 * may have trouble learning the alphabet, rhyming words, or connecting letters to their sounds;
 * may make many mistakes when reading aloud, and repeat and pause often;
 * may not understand what he or she reads;
 * may have trouble with spelling;
 * may have very messy handwriting or hold a pencil awkwardly;
 * may struggle to express ideas in writing; may lean language late and have a limited vocabulary;
 * may have trouble remembering the sounds that letters make or hearing slight differences between words;
 * may have trouble understanding jokes, comic strips, and sarcasm;
 * may have trouble following directions;
 * may mispronounce words or use a wrong word that sounds similar;
 * may have trouble organizing what the or she wants to say or not be able to think of the word he or she needs for writing or conversation;
 * may not follow the social rules of conversation, such as taking turns, and may stand too close to the listener;
 * may confuse math symbols and misread numbers;
 * may not be able to retell a story in order; or
 * may not know where to begin a task or how to go on from there.