When diagnosing learning disabilities, including auditory, visually or language based learning disabilities, the process can become complicated as well as costly for parents.
Parents soon find that there are a lot of professionals with a lot of opinions regarding diagnosing learning disabilities, dyslexia, brain impairment and a whole multitude of associated conditions. They need to appreciative that when it comes to diagnosing a learning disability, even the doctors agree that they often are not caused by one distinct problem, but by several problems, each overlapping and affecting the next. So if you have a child with a language based learning disability, there is frequently involvement from the auditory and visual systems, so that even in a mainly language based learning disability the other types of learning trouble should not be overlooked.
It can be quite invaluable to diagnose learning disabilities near the beginning in a child’s life, as it can severely benefit their school life and everyday life. In this day and age, with new advancements in technology and research, there are things that can be done, and therapies which can be pursued despite whether the child has visual, auditory or language based learning disabilities.
The chief emphasis needs to be diagnosing learning disabilities as ahead of time as possible, for the reason that if we can do this we can reduce how far the child’s performance slips behind that of their peers. Thus diagnosing learning disabilities in a preschool or prep child and helping them properly is far better than diagnosing them in a child who is in Grade 8, and facing years of catch up to get better their performance to that of the other kids in the class. Also, the long term detrimental habits, loss of confidence and loss of self esteem so often seen in older children can be avoided if we are diagnosing learning disabilities in children early in the school career.
Diagnosing learning disabilities can be made much easier if we view the individual areas as opposed to the entire difficulty. We have found that specific areas of learning difficulties may likewise truly help other seemingly non-related areas. So, for example, if we use vision therapy to instruct and progress a child’s visual system, this may have the flow on effect of likewise helping a language based learning disability, even despite the fact that we may not have specifically targeted these areas in our therapy!
As a Behavioral Optometrist, I usually diagnose children with vision rather than language based learning problems. If I find significant language based learning disabilities, I continuously refer to local speech therapists who can work specifically in those areas. Some children, in reality numerous children, have a selection of these problems, but can only afford to do one type of therapy (usually the worst area). If we have found vision is the more key when diagnosing learning disabilities, then we may treat the question with vision therapy, just to find that the child’s vocalizations and language difficulties start to develop as well.
Maybe a good problem would be, “which is the simplest and most cost effective problem to treat?” Until a short time ago, virtually all therapy alternatives were very high-priced, costing thousands of dollars and lasting years, but with the rise of the internet that has all changed!
But now you can gain access to a full 6 month, professional grade vision therapy course for less than $100, and this makes vision therapy an exceptionally cost effective and practical option for parents worldwide. If your child struggles with vision, auditory or language based learning difficulties, why not check out our site for free information and an 8 day mini course. Don’t be diagnosing learning disabilities simply to do nothing to help your child when free information and very cheap therapies are now obtainable to help you.