Learning issues in children
	Problem: What are learning issues in children Solution: Many children are smart and have lots of abilities in many areas, but they have difficulties in school because they have Problems in the way their brains are wired. They are different from other individuals in their learning. Some children may have difficulty in mathematic because they have a particular memory Problem. Some children may have trouble in reading though they are smart because they have trouble with some aspects of language like - sounds of language or being able to figure out complicated sentences. These children often appear lazy or people say that they are poorly motivated. They have an unusual pattern of brain wiring which causes difficulty. Problem: Parents often get hysterical about their child not doing well in school. Or sometimes they are laid back. Can parents recognize these Problems in their children? Solution: We see all three of these reactions. Some parents get too upset about it and others just ignore it. But it is best to recognize the Problem and keep a good eye on it rather than getting nervous about it. If your child is struggling with reading or has trouble with concentrating in school, if he is disorganized or seems to have a trouble in a particular area like - he might not be able to spell or is a child who sounds good when he talks but is poor on paper. These could be typical signs of child who has some underlying dysfunction that is affecting his learning. Problem: It is often seen in siblings that one child is faster, understands quicker and is able to grasp things and retain them while the other is not. What in the brain triggers this condition? Solution: It is something in the way a particular child's brain is set so that one child may have no difficulty in processing information quickly but the other may take longer to do so. But that same child who takes too long to process information may be wonderful in doing things with his hands than his sister or brother. He may be much more creative. Every child has a profile of strengths and weakness in memory, in language, in concentration, in the ability to reason or solve Problems. Problem: Who can identify this Problem, can parents do it or they have to see an expert? Solution: Parents need to be the first one to suspect that their child has trouble expressing himself or he is doing poorly in tests or he is having a lot of Problem with mathematics or reading too slowly. Sometimes the child develops behaviour Problems because he is embarrassed and humiliated due to his learning difficulties. Even a behaviour Problem can be a sign of learning Problem. Once the parents suspect that there is a Problem, they often need help from an expert who can evaluate the child, who can figure out what his strengths and weakness are, who can pinpoint what is getting in the way when the child tries to learn maths or tries to write. He has to evaluate whether it is a memory Problem, a language Problem, a trouble in visualising things or is it a motor Problem? We need an expert to find out where the breakdown is occurring and then we can do something about it. Problem: Are these Problems very common in our country? How many parents go to a specialist in this regard? Solution: These Problems are as common in our country as they would be in the western world, but the only thing is that parents often misdiagnose and misunderstand such Problems to be signs of laziness, not wanting to work enough and punitive action is taken. Parents or teachers deal with it in a very nasty way either through punishment, by labeling the child as weak or slow and it becomes a cyclic pattern. As the behavioural Problem can result from these learning differences, the vice versa is also true as sometimes behavioural Problems or emotional blocks could be the root of such learning differences. Problem: In our country most schools are supposed to have a counselor. In case the counselors are not there, then where should the parents take the child to identify the Problem and to work upon it? Solution: You are right; it is mandatory to have a counselor in every school today. That's another matter how good is the counselor's work, but at least there is one. The first person to recognize and identify these issues should be the teacher and the parents. and such issues should be directed to the school counselor. Besides that you can go to a child specialist, clinical psychologist or paediatrician who will refer you to the right person. Problem: I am a student doing B. Tech (first year). When I was in class 12 I used to get very good marks and I was able to concentrate in my studies but now when I have entered a professional course, I am not able to concentrate. Why is it happening? Solution: It could be that the course you are doing has a lot of detail in it and requires deeper concentration. It could be that the workload is harder and heavier and that it has surpassed your capacity for attention. It would be good for you to try and get it evaluated as to why you are having trouble in staying focused. You can develop Problems with attention at any age; sometimes there is a medical reason for it and sometimes it is just that the workload is too great. Problem: How do you tell a person that he should follow a certain pattern so that he is able to maximize his concentration level? Solution: First of all, someone who is having trouble in concentrating needs to find out the best time of the day to concentrate. He might find that he is a night person or morning person. He needs to give himself plenty of breaks when he works. Sometimes listening to music while working makes a difference. So he has to experiment on what works on his attention and how can he maximize his power of concentration. Problem: Two of our sons, aged 17 and 18 years, are diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Their school counselor has suggested them to be on a tablet. Initially, we saw a good change in them, but their grades went down again. They are not doing very well in studies and their concentration is very poor. Should we increase the dose of the tablet or is there another way to deal with this? Solution: Some people believe that medication can do the trick but a lot of time when a child is not concentrating, it might be that he is not understanding or he is having a learning Problem or some difficulty with his memory. If you feel frustrated in school, you stop concentrating. If a child doesn't respond to the medication, then the next step is to find out why and what is going on. For example, an attention Problem might be a Problem in processing the language or trouble in remembering in school. The information goes in from one ear and out from the other and your brain starts getting exhausted and you too. If the medication is not working then its not the attention, there is some other Problem. It's very rare for a child to have trouble with attention and nothing else. Almost every time a kid has trouble with attention, its attention plus language or attention plus memory or attention plus anxiety. We have to find out what else is in the little cluster besides the attention Problem and to just treat the attention is probably not the best way. Problem: My daughter is 11 years old. She does very well when it comes to oral questions in school but she is very reluctant to write it and maintain her notebooks. She sees no purpose or use in copying down the same thing from the question paper or from the book. How do I solve this Problem? Solution: That can be a Problem for her eventually, because sooner or later she has to write her ideas on paper and it is important to insist that she writes some of these down. Eventually, she might benefit from having a computer because she might find it much easier to get things down when she has a keyboard in front of her. It is also important to try and understand why she doesn't want to get things down on paper while she can organize reports on paper. She is 11 years old now and by the time she is 16 she is not going to keep everything in her head and still do a good job. Problem: How can we identify the skills of my two-year-old girl? Solution: Two years old is too early. At this age there are definitely some interests and some attitudes, which can be identified but there is no hard and fast rule and diagnostic tools are not sophisticated enough. We can see whether the child is good enough to certain developmental milestones and try to identify certain strengths and encourage those. In our country at the age of two years parents send their children to pre-school and the child is taught how to read and write and the child develops a sense of failure, inadequacy and it can carry on later in life. The child may feel there is too much pressure in school and learning can be very unpleasant. Problem: Are children born with learning dysfunctions or they arise later in life? Solution: Many children are born with a tendency to have learning Problems. Its unclear whether that tendency would become a serious Problem or a mild Problem. But a lot of it is in the genes or something that happens during pregnancy, its part of wiring of the child. We have to realise that and be careful. It is inhuman to punish, disgrace or embarrass a child for something, which is not his fault. Often these learning Problems result in accusing the child of being lazy or poorly motivated and the child is kept back in a grade and brutalized in school. Problem: My son is in class 10. He was doing wonderfully till class eighth but suddenly his performance has gone down. In every parents-teacher meeting I am told that he has a potential to do better but I feel that there is lack of retention and loss of concentration. How can I help him? Do I need to consult a doctor or will meditation helps? Solution: The child has been a high achiever until class eighth and then there is a decline. In our country, after class tenth the child has to choose a certain stream and then there is a very clear demarcation between students who chose science versus commerce versus humanities. There is sudden jump from class tenth to class eleventh and there is a jump in the difficulty level of the studies, so maybe the child is not really up to doing the stream he has chosen. But efforts should be made to consult a specialist and get the required done. Problem: Where do you think in our country are we lagging behind and what should be done so that we can bring out the best in children who are suffering from this Problem? Solution: We Indians respect learning issues. Unfortunately, we are rote learners and there is too much emphasis on one examination, on rote learning, on theory and less emphasis on understanding project work and demonstrations. We should encourage children to understand and develop motivation and interest in the subject rather than just learning like a parrot.