Laziness, Learning Difficulty, LD, or Dyslexia?

I haven’t posted for a few days due to flying down to Boca Raton, FL for a conference.  I’ll be in meetings the next few days and wanted to be sure and touch base though.

This question recently came up from a parent (Kathy P) wondering, “Does my son have a learning disability or is he just lazy?”

Learning difficulties occur when a student struggles with spoken or written language, mathematical calculations, coordination, self-control, or attention. Such difficulties extend to schoolwork and can impede learning to read, write, or do math.

Look at how much time your son actually works on his homework. By that I mean is focused working on it. Is it hard for him to do or can he really do it, just takes forever getting to it?

With one of my sons – it took him forever to get to his work, but once he was focused he seemed to do fine. I knew he was smart. In fact he tested to be gifted when he was in the 2nd grade. But, by the time he was in the 8th grade it still took him forever to get his work done. He was driving me crazy. To get him going faster, I had him read a page and I’d read a page out of his assignments. When he read I noticed he would skip words or repeat words. It made it more difficult for him to comprehend what he had read. I knew that we needed to check out his vision perception to help him read more fluently so he could comprehend better. To make a long story short, we found out that yes, he did have visual tracking problems. So, we did the vision tracking/fluency exercises and he was able to thrive through high school and college.

Here is a start at determining if there actually is a problem.

Does your child:
1. Take too long to do their work? It seems to take them all night to do what looks like a simple assignment.

2. Have a hard time getting their work done in the allotted time?

3. Spend hours doing schoolwork?

4. They often have to stay in at recess or bring their schoolwork home in order to get it done.

5. Know they have an assignment, but cannot remember what it is? And…it’s too late to call a friend and find out what the assignment is.

6. Have trouble understanding the directions?

7. Work up to their abilities?

I have a FREE e-book, Understanding LD and Dyslexia, that you can download.

Hope this has been helpful.

Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., BCET