My child is struggling 
Now that my child has 
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Karen Golembeski: Today’s podcast will be broken up into three questions that we’ve received from the field, so we’ll start in from a question that a parent asked, and it is, “How can I get my child’s learning disability to go away? Is it something that people outgrow? Is there a medicine or some other treatment that can be used, an example being diet or exercise, special glasses or bio-feedback?”
Sheldon Horowitz: Well, thank you very much for this question. Let me begin by saying that learning disabilities are life-long. They do not go away and they’re not something that you outgrow. There is no brain scan. There are no blood tests. They are no other medical procedure that can rule in or rule out the presence of a learning disability. It’s also important to know that learning disabilities very often run in families, so it’s not unusual to see a sibling, a cousin, an aunt, an uncle or even a parent who also has a learning disability. And there is no medicine that can effectively treat learning disabilities. LD is not that kind of a disorder.
That said, learning disabilities and disorders of attention like ADD or AD/HD often co-occur and these disorders can be treated effectively with medication. The process of discovering what signs and symptoms are related to the LD and which are characteristics of ADD or AD/HD is rarely easy and the best outcomes are achieved when parents and educators and physicians work closely to understand the child’s needs and to plan a course of treatment. Educational interventions, behavioral therapies and, yes, medicine are all important pieces of that LD, ADD, AD/HD puzzle.
As far as diet, exercise, special glasses, bio-feedback therapies and such, I only have one recommendation -- consumer beware. Just because something seems to make sense doesn’t mean that it’s rooted in sound theory or can be backed by sound scientific practice. Sure, some of these approaches might seem to work for some children, but we just don’t know why. We don’t know for which children and whether the benefit will last over time. Many of these approaches are expensive and are not covered by medical insurance or are not provided at no cost by schools, and many of these therapies raise false hopes and expectations resulting in even lowered self-esteem and a deep distrust when things don’t go well and things don’t get better.
I wish I knew enough about the neurobiology of different types or dimensions of LD to propose a sound theory of plausible cause and then prescribed particular treatments. We’re just not there yet and the best we have is carefully designed instructional strategies and a system for trying things out and making adjustments over time based on good performance data. In other words, carefully targeted, well-delivered, high-quality, research-based, individualized and differentiated instruction.
Karen Golembeski: Thank you. Our next question comes from one of our teachers. What should I do when children, parents or other teachers are in denial that anything is wrong? How can I get people to talk, share, and plan together?
