You might never guess it from their disparate professions, but Charles Schwab, Cher, Whoopi Goldberg, and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom all have something in common.
It’s not success and fame, though they certainly have that. Instead, these four people, like approximately 15 percent of all Americans, have a learning disability.
Their achievements highlight the fact that children with learning disabilities needn’t think of it as a roadblock to success. Instead, when detected and remedied through proper education and skill building, people with learning disabilities have the same academic and professional opportunities as those without.
Parents are usually the first ones to notice that something is amiss with their child’s vocabulary, academic, or social skills. Therefore, knowing the characteristics of a learning disability is important. The Coordinated Campaign for Learning Disabilities recommends looking for specific signs of a learning disability, some of which are listed below. I also asked Ashley Burgess, a special education teacher, to weigh in on what to look for.
In Preschool
- Begins speaking later than most kids or has pronunciation problems
- Uses the wrong words
- Has trouble learning numbers, alphabet, colors, shapes, sounds (rhyming)
- Gets easily distracted, restless, or has trouble following directions or routines—though this can be normal behavior
- Problems with coordination—something to watch for especially if paired with troubled learning
Ashley said that in her experience, detecting a learning disability in preschool can be difficult. “Because a learning disability is a deficit between performance (achievement) and potential (ability), at the preschool level, there might not be enough of a discrepancy between the two. Certainly a child with a language delay should be monitored closely as well as a child who has trouble learning numbers, alphabet, colors, or shapes.”
In Grades K–4
- Has trouble learning the connection between letters and sounds
- Problems with spelling, grammar, punctuation, or organizing thoughts—can be a characteristic but not necessarily an identifying problem—this is not to be emphasized in Kindergarten
- Makes reading and spelling errors like letter reversals (b/d) and transpositions (wired/weird). Note: this is more of an issue in 2nd through 4th grades. In Kindergarten it is normal and common to reverse letters like writing a 3 instead of an S.
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