Learning Disabilities and Disorders

During this week we had the opportunity to attend to a workshop conducted by a psychologist, who talked to us about the different learning disabilities and disorders that we might find in the classroom. I believe it is important for teachers to know and understand about this topic, since our students are human beings, just like us, and not all of them will learn and behave in the same way.

I would like to share with you what I have learned about this topic in the last workshop. First of all, I learned that learning disabilities and disorders are not related with intelligence at all. We cannot say that a kid is lazy or less smart than the rest, just because they have a learning disability. On the contrary, we must learn how to deal with that situation and help them develop their abilities.

I also learned that a learning disability is not the same as a learning difficulty. A learning difficulty is an obstacle, any external factor that might affect the capacity of students to learn, such as emotional problems to mention an example. On the other hand, a learning disability is a condition that students have and cannot be simply ignored, they will need help and treatment to learn to develop in the best way.

In conclusion, I believe it is important to learn how to identify that one of our students is having a learning disability or disorder, so that we can find the best way to deal with them and teach them.