Learning Disabilities

Description of the Condition

Learning disabilities (LD) is a well-established term that refers to a broad class of learning disorders typically manifested as a performance difficulty in one or more academic skill areas traditionally taught and assessed in schools. This performance difficulty generally involves the acquisition, rehearsal, retention, retrieval, and recall of symbolic information. Unlike the term itself, the definition of LD is not well established or straightforward. Like many historically significant educational constructs, LD means different things to different people, especially researchers and stakeholders from different educational and psychological disciplines and theoretical perspectives. The current legal definition of LD is established in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1997):