Learning Disabilities

Are you concerned about your child’s academic performance? Does your child seem stressed at school? Does your child exhibit school refusal? Are they having difficulty keeping up to the demands of the classroom? Does your child seem bright but learn differently from the majority of his/her peers? Does your child have an uneven learning profile?

Learning disabilities affect approximately 5-10% of the population but are often misidentified. Children with learning disabilities may initially be labelled as lazy, defiant, or stubborn by their parents and teachers.  Learning disabilities affect the way children process and understand information and are neurologically driven. They can impede the way children learn basic skills in reading, writing, or mathematics. They can also negatively affect skills such as organization, planning, memory, attention, and focus. Research has determined that the earlier learning disabilities are identified and the sooner targeted intervention is given, the better the long-term outcome.

A psychoeducational assessment is a thorough evaluation that will seek to determine your child’s potential (i.e., their cognitive functioning) and whether or not they are achieving to their potential across many different areas of academic functioning (i.e., reading, reading comprehension and fluency, written expression, mathematics, listening comprehension, and oral language).

A psychoeducational assessment can determine whether your child has an underlying learning disability or whether there are other factors that may be negatively impacting their ability to succeed in a school setting. For example, in some cases, a child may be underperforming in school due to anxiety, peer or social problems, difficulties sustaining attention and remembering information, or emotional distress. 

At Leap Psychology, a collaborative approach is taken for psychoeducational assessments. Parents and caregivers, current and previous teacher(s), your child, other specialists and/or therapists (if applicable), and the psychologist will work together to understand your child’s unique learning profile. The psychologist will gather information through interviews and questionnaires, observe your child using a highly trained approach, administer measures proven to examine the different building blocks of learning, systematically analyze results, and craft a set of recommendations individually tailored to your child to help them succeed.

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