The Ongoing Impact of Having a Learning Disability

On the positive side, many persons with learning disabilities overcome significant odds and succeed in spite of their difficulties. This is usually due to their abilities and talents as well as their different, often highly creative approach to problem solving. There is lots of information available about individuals who, in spite of having learning disabilities, achieved fame and fortune. You may be or have the potential to be one of these people.

There are many others who struggle, but manage to lead productive lives by avoiding situations where their learning disabilities would get in the way. Many of these people tend not to disclose their learning disabilities, except under the most extreme conditions. Others openly discuss their learning disabilities and have learned how to ask for help in such a way that it is given with willingness.

Learning disabilities may result in the following problems:

School related difficulties:

Often learning disabilities are first considered or identified when a child is enrolled in school. This is because learning disabilities frequently affect school achievement. They may result in difficulties with learning to read, write, spell, compute or handle other academic tasks.

Employment related difficulties:

Learning disabilities may become a barrier to successful employment for several reasons. These include a lack of understanding on the part of the employer of:

• What learning disabilities are.

• What the employee can do well.

• What he or she has difficulties with.

• Ways that he or she can be helped to do better.

If the employee with learning disabilities has not disclosed or has not explained adequately his or her areas of difficulty and accommodation needs, then it is unlikely that accommodation will be provided. This may result in the employee losing the job, when with the appropriate accommodation he or she could have been quite successful. For these same reasons, many people with learning disabilities choose to become self-employed and work, usually quite successfully, alone. They only run into problems when they need to interact with other people or companies.

People with learning disabilities are often disadvantaged in their search for productive employment because they lack the required job readiness and job search skills. In particular, they frequently have difficulties with demonstrating a reasonable match between the essential requirements of the job, on one hand, and their skills, coping and compensatory strategies and accommodation requirements, on the other.

Daily living issues:

Many tasks of daily living call for specific skills. These include the ability to manage one's money, dealing with a landlord, negotiating with a bank, dealing with situations which are new and different from those that the person has faced before. Learning disabilities may interfere with the learning and performance of these skills.

Social relationships:

Dealing with social relationships is sometimes as complex as dealing with academic tasks. The spoken and unspoken messages of human interaction have to be learned. People with certain learning disabilities sometimes have poor social skills and social relationships.

In the same way that a person with a learning disability has trouble with reading the printed page, he or she may also have difficulties with "reading a room" before entering and engaging in social interaction with others. He may be viewed as anti-social because, not having seen or correctly interpreted a non-verbal cue, he did not join a group. People with learning disabilities may also misinterpret jokes and unspoken or hidden messages. This frequently leads them into complex difficulties in social settings.

Self-esteem:

For many people with learning disabilities, their pattern of difficulties, failure and the negative comments of other people often lead to a poor self image and negative self esteem. This sometimes results in the person withdrawing from social contact and choosing loneliness rather than potential rejection from a peer group.