Learning Disability Testing- Diagnosing A Child With Learning Disabilities
Learning disability testing or diagnosing learning disabilities is a difficult and often controversial area. With no specific testing available which directly yields the diagnosis “learning disability”, is comes down to a variety of practitioners using a battery of tests to “piece together” the diagnosis of a child with learning disabilities.
Essentially, learning disability testing revolves around the particular discipline of the tester, with educationalists applying learning disability tests which center on education, while clinical psychologists apply learning disability tests which revolve around intelligence and problem solving. As an Optometrist, I run many tests for not only eye related problems, but also visual perception, both of which can have a bearing on diagnosing learning disabilities, but I do not run any specific educational tests for a child with learning disabilities.
However, as we are increasingly discovering, a l child with learning disabilities shows a complex series of problems, many of which span several of the areas of expertise of the various learning disability testing practitioners. In other words, no one specific test confirms or denies a learning disability. Test any child with learning disabilities and you will often find that no one branch of health science or education has all the answers. Likewise, there are many learning disabilities resources, but many of them are prohibitive in costs or located out of the area for many people.
For my part, as a Behavioral Optometrist, the learning disability testing that I pursue for child with learning disabilities follows the following outline
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Testing the overall health of the eyes and visual pathways, including the sight (seeing ability) of the child, to establish that the learning disability is not the direct result of a loss of vision. It rarely ever is.
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Testing the refractive status of the child, which is their prescription (for distance). this establishes if they are long or shortsighted, if any astigmatism is present and if these could be contributing to the diagnosing of learning disabilities.
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Testing the way the eyes focus together. Even if the child has no longsight present, the inability to focus or the stress involved with focusing can be a huge factor in both the learning disability and overall concentration.
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Testing how the eyes coordinate together, because a child failing to coordinate their eyes when reading (such as in convergence insufficiency) can certainly contribute to the learning disability.
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Testing how the child moves their eyes across the page, because the reading disorders associated with diagnosing learning disabilities can often be affected by poor tracking or eye movement skills.
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Testing visual memory, because reduced visualizing and visual memory can severely impact the ability of a child to remember and recall spelling words, which reduced sight words and contributes to diagnosing learning disabilities.
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Testing other areas of perception, including sequencing, coding, visual manipulation, directionality (for letter reversals) and other perceptual skills which can adversely affect a child in their learning.
This list of tests is purely from a Behavioral Optometry point of view, yet each of these areas can have a massive affect on a child struggling with a learning disability. Testing and treating a l child with learning disabilities may be complex, but I find it amazingly rewarding when we can offer the help this child desperately needs.
When facing a child with learning disabilities, I am essentially testing the workings of the eyes and visual system, and the visual skills the child has available for the tasks of reading, writing and spelling. The great news is that, once we establish exactly where the child lacks skill, we can use Optometric Vision Therapy to train those areas which are lacking and improve the performance of a child with learning disabilities in those skills. With “Learning @ Lightspeed”, this is simply to do at home and very inexpensive, so if you have had learning disability testing done with your child, I strongly urge you to check out the full program.
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Related posts:
- Learning Disability Testing For Diagnosing Learning Disabilities In A Child
- Diagnosing A Child With Learning Disabilities
- Learning Disabilities Online- Worldwide Learning Disability Testing And Treatment
- Diagnosing Learning Disabilities- Including Vision and Language Based
- Diagnosing Learning Disabilities And Language Based Learning Disabilities
