The criteria and characteristics for diagnosing learning disabilities appear in a reference book called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The DSM diagnosis is commonly used when applying for health insurance coverage of diagnostic and treatment services.
Learning Disorders
Students with academic-skills disorders are often years behind their classmates in developing reading, writing or arithmetic skills. The diagnoses in this category include:
- Reading disorder
- Disorder of written expression
- Mathematics disorder
- Learning disorder not otherwise specified
The reading disorder, also known as dyslexia, is quite widespread. Reading disabilities affect 2 to 8 percent of elementary school children.
The essential feature of a reading disorder is reading achievement (reading accuracy, speed or comprehension as measured by individually administered standardized tests) that falls substantially below the expected level given the individual's chronological age, measured intelligence and age-appropriate education. The disturbances in reading significantly interfere with academic achievement or with activities of daily living that require reading skills. If a sensory deficit is present, the reading difficulties are in excess of those usually associated with it. If a neurological or other general medical condition or sensory deficit is present, it should be categorized as that. In individuals with a reading disorder, reading aloud is characterized by distortions, substitutions or omissions. Both reading out loud and silently are characterized by slowness and errors in comprehension.
In the disorder of written expression, writing skills (as measured by an individually administered standardized test or functional assessment of writing skills) fall substantially below the expected skills for the individual's chronological age, measured intelligence and education. The disturbance significantly interferes with academic achievement or certain daily living experiences. If a sensory deficit is present, the difficulties in writing skills are in excess of those usually associated with it. There is generally a combination of difficulties in the individual's ability to compose written tests, which tend to be full of grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes, poor paragraph organization and poor handwriting.
The essential feature of the mathematics disorder is a lack of mathematical ability (as measured by individually administered standardized tests of mathematical calculation or reasoning) that falls substantially below the expectation for the individual's age, measured intelligence and age-appropriate education. The disturbance in mathematics strongly interferes with academic achievement or activities of daily living. A number of different skills may be impaired in a mathematics disorder, including "linguistic" skills (understanding or naming mathematical terms, operations or concepts, and decoding written problems into mathematical symbols), "perceptual" skills (recognizing or reading numerical symbols or arithmetic signs and clustering objects into groups), "attention" skills (copying numbers or figures correctly, remembering to add in "carried" numbers and observing operational signs) and "mathematical" skills (following sequences of mathematical steps, counting objects and learning multiplication tables).
For those who do not meet the criteria for any specific learning disorder discussed so far, there is the category of learning disorders not otherwise specified. This might include problems in all three areas (reading, mathematics and written expression) that, together, significantly interfere with academic achievement, even though performance on tests measuring each individual skill is not substantially below that expected given the person's chronological age, measured intelligence and age-appropriate education.
