Does Your Child Face Learning Difficulties?

The two words ‘learning difficulties’ mean different things to different people. For some parents, this means their child has trouble learning new academic type things. For others, that their child faces challenges outside the classroom.

The Ministry of Education tends to avoid using learning difficulties, instead using children with learning support needs. Regardless of all these different meanings though, our view as parents is that a child with learning difficulties is a child that needs a bit of extra support. So, we’ve put together a collection of tips to help you provide just that.

Helping Your Child with Their Learning Difficulties

Disorders of the central nervous system, specific learning disabilities (SLDs) interfere with one or more of their learning functions: storing and retrieving information, sorting information, collecting information and expressing information. A child with an SLD such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia or dysgraphia will face learning difficulties in one or more of these specific areas. However, while the causes of SLDs are unknown, there are many things you can do to help reduce your child’s struggles and improve their self-esteem and motivational levels:

• Praise effort over results – it’s the effort your child makes rather than the marks they get that is important.
• Talk to their school – your child’s teacher is most likely already aware of their learning difficulties. Ask them what they are doing to support your child in the classroom and what you can do at home.
• Focus on strengths – every child has something they do well, so makes sure you encourage your child to uses these strengths. Often, these strengths can be incorporated into other activities, rather than just being a standalone tool.
• Discover how they learn best – is your child a visual learner? Do they learn best by doing or by listening? Help them understand that we all have different ways and preferences when it comes to learning, and that’s ok.
• Provide the right resources – having access to toys, games and equipment at the right skill and academic levels is a huge help. If you are unsure what your child can do or knows, ask their teacher or your child (if they are able to do this). Our range of educational games and books would be a great place to start looking for their new learning resources.

Our articles Help! My Child Has Trouble Following Instructions, Helping Your Child with Dyspraxia,  and How Jigsaw Puzzles Help Kids Learn to Solve Problems are great reads which may help you and your child too. But just for a bit of fun, light hearted reading, we’re throwing in our article How to Protect Your Sex Life from your Kids into the must read list too…..

As for other places to go for support and advice, you could try the SPELD, Ministry of Education and Learning Disabilities Association of NZ’s websites.