What is a Specific Learning Disability?
A Specific Learning Disability (SpLD) is a neurological disorder that often runs in families. The difficulties the person experiences are not related to lack of intelligence, deafness, blindness, autism, behavioural disorders, or lack of educational opportunities.
Common learning disabilities include:
· Dyslexia – a language-based disability in which a person has difficulty understanding written words. Also referred to as a reading disability or reading disorder, it the most common of the learning disabilities with as many as 80% of students with learning disabilities have reading problems.
· Dyscalculia – a mathematical disability in which a person has difficulty solving arithmetic problems and understanding maths concepts.
· Dysgraphia – a writing disability in which a person has difficulty forming letters or writing within a defined space.
· Auditory and Visual Processing Disorders – sensory disabilities in which a person has difficulty processing auditory and visual information despite normal hearing and vision
· Dysnomia – a naming disability in which a person has difficulty recalling words, symbols and names quickly from memory.
· Nonverbal Learning Disability – a neurological disorder which originates in the right hemisphere of the brain, causing problems with visual-spatial, intuitive, organizational, evaluative and holistic processing functions.
Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities often occur at the same time, but the two disorders are not the same. | 
