Faculty Guide: Learning Disability

See also Accommodations and Communication

A learning disability is caused by differences in brain structure or functioning and leads to difficulties with specific types of learning. As a result, there is a discrepancy between their potential and their performance in some academic areas.

Students with learning disabilities may have neurological issues that may lead to:

• Trouble taking information in through the senses
• Difficulty in obtaining and accurately transmitting information from the brain
• Interference with their ability to process, store, and produce information
• Poor memory as a result of information storing issues

Areas affected by a learning disability:

• Reading
• Writing
• Spelling
• Math computation
• Expressive and receptive language skills
• Auditory and visual processing skills
• Memory

It is important that learning disabled students receive and transmit information in a form or modality that works best for them.