Activities for children with learning disabilities

The activities for children with learning disabilities They help complement treatments for dyslexia, ADHD, dysgraphia and dysgraphia. Learning disorders (LD) have a major role today, as they are one of the most frequent causes of school failure.

The prevalence of AT is between 5 and 15% of the child population, so that we can infer that in practically all classrooms we can find a boy or girl with one or another learning disorder.

Article index

• 1 But what are learning disorders?
• 2 Activities for each disorder
  • 2.1 -Dyslexia
  • 2.2 -Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
  • 2.3 -Dysgraphia
  • 2.4 -Dyscalculia
• 3 How do children with learning disabilities feel??
  • 3.1 Anxiety
  • 3.2 Low academic self-concept
  • 3.3 depression
• 4 What can you do if you suspect a learning disorder in your child??
• 5 References

But what are learning disorders?

They are disorders, most of them with a biological and sometimes genetic basis, that condition a child with a normal level of intelligence..

These boys and girls, despite receiving adequate instruction at school, do not manage to advance in any of the learning adequately, and their results in some subjects may be far from what is expected due to their age, their effort and their intelligence level.

ATs can affect boys and girls very differently or in different areas. They can affect global language, writing, reading or mathematical calculation. Learning difficulties can also be expressed in the form of absentmindedness, attention and concentration problems, organizational difficulties, impulsiveness, nervousness ...

Do any of these characteristics sound familiar to you? Then it is possible that someone in your environment has learning problems. What learning disorders are the most common and what can you do to help??

Activities for each disorder

-Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a reading disorder that is found in practically all ethnic groups, languages ​​and geographical locations and is mainly characterized by difficulty when reading.

What are the warning signs for dyslexia?

• The child was slow to start speaking.
• Often confusions of sounds of similar words. For example, using plurals when they do not touch, changing gender words when they are alike in their writing, inventing letters or exchanging letters in words.
• Confusions of right-left, up-down ...
• Difficulty finding words that rhyme with each other.
• Difficulties in accurate and fluent word recognition.
• Difficulty spelling or reading words that do not exist.

Activities for children with dyslexia

• Play games with the child that help them learn how words are spelled, and how letters sound when they are joined. A good game would be Hangman.
• Play games that help detect the syllables of words and their pronunciation. For example, chained words or make up songs together.
• Reading with your child will always help your child learn what written symbols sound like and how they are grouped. You can read first and then read what you have read, so you will act as a model. You can also ask him to read to you, while you supervise what is read.
• Read made up words. When we read an invented word, we force ourselves to decode in our brain each letter, its union in syllables and its sound. This is great for kids with dyslexia..

-Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Although ADHD is currently a compromised disorder, the truth is that it is unquestionable that there are many children who present common symptoms, leaving aside whether the causes are biological, psychological or social.

What are the red flags for ADHD?

• Notable restlessness in all contexts.
• Usually leaves things by halves.
• Difficulty following the instructions of the elderly.
• Talk a lot and can't identify when it's not appropriate.
• Your impulsiveness stands out.
• You need to satisfy their demands immediately (for example, interrupts conversations, or plays with their peers).
• Is continually distracted and does not seem to listen when spoken to.
• Tends to have everything in between, without any order.
• Great difficulty organizing your things.
• Difficulties in organizing time.

Activities for children with ADHD

• Mark routines. If you help him organize his day and be aware of time, little by little these routines will help him to have a more orderly life. For example, you can make a weekly calendar together with the times to get up, eat, do homework ...
• Behavioral contracts. It is an agreement that you and the child take together of certain behaviors that must be corrected little by little.
• Train self-instructions. Help the child to stand up and decide what to do.
• Free recreation time. It is not good to limit the child constantly. Therefore, you should have a daily time to play outdoors, with other children if possible..

-Dysgraphia

Many aspects are involved in writing: A process of planning the message, structuring and organizing the message to be transmitted, writing the words correctly, and the proper stroke of the letters on the paper..

Difficulties in writing can affect any of the aforementioned aspects.

What are the warning signs for dysgraphia?

• Writing skills are substantially lower than expected for their age.
• Your writing significantly interferes with academic performance and activities of daily living.
• Despite his “bad handwriting” or poor writing performance, his reading level is within normal limits..

Activities for children with dysgraphia

• Review the posture that the child takes at the time of writing, since in many cases dysgraphia is caused by poor posture or a very strong tension in the muscles that go from the neck to the hand.
• The classic punch: We can provide the child with different drawings, lines and letters from least to greatest difficulty to pierce the contours.
• You can work by cutting paper in order to create decorative objects such as garlands or doing origami exercises from low to high difficulty.
• Finally, we can teach the child to do cross stitch, with all that this entails: Threading the needle, following a pattern and copying it on the fabric, having aim when nailing the needle ...

-Dyscalculia

Number sense is an innate ability that people have, and it allows us to quantify the elements of our environment, as well as distinguish between quantities..

Dyscalculia is a great unknown among learning disorders, although difficulties in mathematics are the order of the day and it is not uncommon to consider this subject as the difficult subject. In fact, it is one of the subjects with the highest failure rate.

Logically, not all people who have trouble math are dyscalculic. Surely, your difficulties with mathematics are due to unresolved elementary gaps. However, the difficulties of people with calculation disorder go beyond gaps that are not resolved, and errors occur in the most basic questions.

What are the warning signs of dyscalculia?

• Poor reading of the numbers, despite the fact that the school level is much higher.
• Changes of place of the numbers or forgotten numbers. For example, write: 1.19 instead of 1.019.
• Difficulties in placing the figures in the correct position for the calculation.
• Not distinguishing between units, tens and hundreds, although the school level is significantly higher.
• Difficulties in saying if one number is greater or less than another. The quantities are not well distinguished.
• Difficulties when doing addition and subtraction "with carried".
• Confusion between addition and subtraction.

Activities for children with dyscalculia

• The most important thing is that you have enormous patience, since most of the interventions focus on repeating, repeating and repeating certain exercises until the child automates their learning. The important thing is to repeat the tasks over and over again and that they are fun.
• Play games that relate numbers and operations to real life. For example, going to buy sweets together or school supplies, and that the child has to take charge of adding the prices and checking that the return is correct.
• The more senses that are involved in your learning, the better. For this reason, a good way to learn numbers would be, for example, with the number 3: the child writes the number saying it out loud, then draws 3 apples, then collects 3 cubes, and finally jumps three times. A good idea would also be to play Parcheesi, having to count aloud while moving the tile, and doing the operations aloud as well..

How do children with learning disabilities feel??

The vast majority of children with learning disabilities have an emotional problem associated with learning difficulties (Cheng, 2016).

A common problem among professionals in psychology and education is that the disorder is cared for more than the child itself. Therefore, we must not forget that the difficulties that our child has, may be causing a significant emotional impact on him..

Below, you can find which emotions and signs are the most common and what to do to be able to address them with the child.

Anxiety

It is common for children to feel nervous and tense when going to school and see that they do not perform like the rest of their peers despite their efforts. This can be really frustrating and in many cases leads the child to reject the subject in which they have difficulties or to not want to go to school.

It is very important to bear in mind that anxiety in childhood does not show itself in the same way as in adulthood, and that it can be expressed through tantrums, crying, calls for attention or disobedience.

Therefore, you must always have a lot of patience and make the child see that you will always accompany him in his learning and that he should not worry if he cannot keep up with his classmates, because each boy or girl has his own rhythm in all the things, and surely he has other abilities that his peers don't.

Low academic self-concept

If we put ourselves in the shoes of a child with dyslexia who can barely read, accompanied by classmates from 4th grade who already read without problems, we can imagine how many of the children with learning difficulties feel.

As an adult, it would be a good idea to focus the child's attention on their other skills and to enhance their development in that area. For example, the child we mentioned before with dyslexia, may have the reading problems that we have mentioned, but he may like athletics a lot and be a great athlete..

In this way, his self-esteem will not be based so much on school but on other skills with which he enjoys and in which he is competent..

Depression

Some of the boys and girls with learning difficulties are overcome by problems at school when they see that they cannot improve, or that a great effort means little improvement..

It is very important that you pay close attention to the child with learning disabilities, since, like anxiety, depression in children is not expressed as in adults.

Children with depression tend to become angry, withdrawn, have behavior problems in the classroom or at home, or have physical symptoms such as persistent headaches, or tummy aches..

The best thing for these cases is to have a lot of patience and affection with the child. Talk to him about how he feels and why, and ask him what you can do to make him feel better. Children, because they are children, do not stop knowing what is happening to them or what they need, and we as adults have to make them feel that we are here to accompany and help them.

What can you do if you suspect a learning disorder in the child??

The best thing you can do in case of suspicion is to ask a professional, such as a psychopedagogue or a psychologist. This will know how to advise you, will tell you if your suspicions are based on dysfunctional factors, and if necessary will evaluate the child to make a diagnosis.

If the professional finally considers that the child has a learning disorder, they will advise you on everything you need. In addition, it would be good if you let the educational center know the diagnosis, since it is necessary for them to take into account their difficulties and help the child in the classroom and at school.

References

1. American Psychiatric Association, APA (2013). DSM-V. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. (5^th). Washington, DC.
2. Cheng, J. (2016). Understanding children's hearts and minds: Emotional functioning and learning disabilities. 
3. Reading remedy (2016). Symptoms of dyslexia. Summary of warning signs. Retrieved March 29, 2016.
4. Andreu, L. Serra, JM. Soler, O. Tolchinsky, L (2014). Writing and math learning disorders. Barcelona: UOC Publishing, SL.
5. Andreu, Ll. Lara, M. López, A. Palacio, A. Rodríguez, J. Sopena, J (2014). Reading learning disorders. Barcelona: Oberta UOC Publishing, SL.