Usually, this is an intelligent child, who fails at school, writes ‘no’ for ‘on’, write’s ‘41’ for ‘14’ and cannot remember the sequence of letters that make up a word. The child forgets the names of the people, places, own address and telephone number but does remember the ads on the TV.
Usually, this is a child with a messy room, totally disorganised, shoelaces are undone, shirttail hanging out, detests hair brushing, tooth brushing and nail cutting- all tactile hypersensitivity reactions. This child doesn’t look where he walks, bumps into doorways, trips on his own toes, swings his lunch box into the nearest person- thus exhibiting poor visuospatial relationship.
Usually, he has trouble lining up, doesn’t stop talking, giggles too much and laughs the loudest. Following of instructions is not his cup of tea as he exhibits poor Auditory sequential processing. He has poor frustration thresholds, cannot tolerate the slightest error, explodes at one moment and is tearful at the other. Says I don’t care or I won’t when he really means I can’t
Frequently, his language comes out of all jumbled, he stops and starts in the middle of a sentence or an idea. He hugs the cat too tightly but can’t hold his pencil, gets frostbite in the snow, hates woollens or does not feel the heat till he gets scorched. These are poorly modulated kinesthetic and tactile inputs.
Sometimes, he rushes headlong into his work, is first to finish and has done all the problems wrong. He can add and multiply but not subtract and divide. He can do maths in the head but can’t write it down.
This is the distractible child, who tends not to look, listen, and remember, do what he is supposed to do. Is he bad, willful manipulative, lazy? No probably not. If your child exhibits any of these he may be a Learning disabled child. Almost 12% of the school population have Learning Disability. The common ones are Dysgraphia- a disorder of writing, Dyscalculia- a disorder of maths and commonest Dyslexia- a disorder of language processing. It is seen more commonly in boys and in all languages.
Remedial sessions along with Sensory Integration programme work wonders with these children. Early Intervention eases the problem further. It needs a team of a Psychiatrist, a special educator and the School teacher.
Help your child to HELP HIMSELF!!
Courtesy- Medium
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