Learning Disorders

Learning disorders (LD) refer to patterns of cognitive strengths and weaknesses in individuals that may create a risk for difficulties in learning specific skills. For example, an individual with weak verbal ability may not be efficient at remembering words, resulting in a reading problem, even though the same individual may have strong visual-spatial skills, which result in good performance in math or science. Conversely, an individual with high verbal ability may be good at reading, history, and so on, but if the same individual is weak in visual-spatial ability, he or she may have difficulties with math or map reading. Thus, LD occurs when a specific cognitive weakness creates a specific deficit in an academic learning area. Although LD was originally related to academic learning, it has now also been associated with nonschool learning (e.g., driving, sports) and social learning problems.

There are two primary reasons LD has become increasingly important to the field of counseling psychology. One relates to the secondary effects of having an LD, such as the emotional frustration of a child who can't keep up in school, and the other relates to the primary late effects of LD, such as an adolescent experiencing difficulty in college or an adult with a language problem experiencing communication problems with a spouse. Children with LD often experience frustration due to school learning problems, which may create low self-esteem, emotional difficulty, and behavior problems, which in turn may create family and parenting difficulties. It is important for counseling psychologists to understand LD in order to be able to assist parents, the child, and the family in dealing with the consequences of LD in family interactions. Another reason counseling psychologists need to have knowledge of LD is that many vocational, social, emotional, or marital problems are related to the problems in living experienced by the adolescent or adult with an LD. For example, a husband, who may have had a language-based LD in school, may have received reading assistance and no longer has a reading disability, but may still lack efficiency in the use of language. The wife may perceive that this husband ignores her because he does not communicate with her.

Counseling psychology, as a profession, has been a strong advocate for understanding and sensitivity to individual differences as well as to group differences such as gender, ethnicity, culture, and socioeconomic level. Greater knowledge of learning disorders will allow counseling psychologists to understand cognitive differences of individuals with LD and how counseling strategies may be altered in order to take into account the individual's cognitive strengths and weaknesses. It is also important for the counseling psychologist to understand LD subtypes, because many children and adults with LD deny their disorder and need counseling in order to gain better self-awareness, so they can learn to manage and compensate for their LD.

As an example, individuals with a memory deficit LD (MemLD) may not compensate by using note reminders and a calendar if they do not have insight into their LD. Their forgetfulness will create negativism from friends, teachers, parents, and colleagues. A counseling strategy that uses cognitive strengths to overcome the memory deficit may be very helpful to [Page 274]this individual. Individuals with language deficit LD (LangLD) may have a tendency to become frustrated or angry when they do not understand others and do not have insight into their LD. A counseling strategy that capitalizes on this individual's strong visual-spatial skills may help this individual process information visually through pictures and maps rather than through weaker language skills. Individuals with nonverbal learning disorders (NLD) have deficits in visual-spatial skills, and hence do not often read the nonverbal cues in human interaction such as facial expression, body language, and postures denoting certain moods. Therefore, the individual with NLD may appear insensitive or naive to others. A counseling strategy that helps this individual to learn how to verbally interpret nonverbal social communication cues may improve the social adaptability of the client with NLD.

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