BABY AND CHILDHOOD ILLNESSES: LEARNING DIFFICULTIES (INCLUDING HYPERACTIVITY AND DYSLEXIA)
All children are born with a basic urge to learn. What happens is governed both by inherited capability and by local, external influences. A person’s intellect grows and it is a cumulative process. Early stimulation is vital, and ideally the child is exposed to a variety of stimulating experiences from birth. Education starts at home, and the years before school commences are probably the most important in the entire life of the child.
The most frequent cause of serious delay and difficulty in learning is mental subnormality. But another important cause is a slowness in maturation. Some children learn to acquire some skills much quicker than other skills, and much more rapidly than other children. Children with a late puberty are often slower at learning.
Sometimes learning difficulty may be associated with a condition called minimal cerebral dysfunction, claimed to be a consequence of inadequate oxygen reaching the brain at birth. This may result in the so-called hyperkinetic syndrome (commonly known as hyperactivity). The child is often restless, on the move all the time, has a short attention span, is impulsive and clumsy and emotionally unstable. He or she rejects discipline and finds ordinary duties irksome. Often it is very difficult to cope with these fellows at school. (See below under Hyperactivity)
Some children have difficulty with words. Many normal persons have been through a stage of stammering (but have ultimately done all right), simply because for them piecing words together was difficult—just as other children were perhaps slow in learning to walk or to control their urine or to ride a bike. Sometimes the stuttering persists, and in certain cases it may represent a mild degree of brain damage.
Dyslexia means difficulty in reading; dysphasia is difficulty in learning how to speak; dysgraphia is difficulty in writing. There are all manner of variations to these disorders.
Treatment
It is essential that any speech difficulty be carefully checked by a doctor to establish whether there is any neurological disability. Then an assessment by an educational psychologist who can manage the child is essential. There are many problems and difficulties, but a reasonable outcome is often possible.
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