Diagnosing Learning Disabilities: Can Vision Therapy Help Language Based Learning Disabilities
When diagnosing learning disabilities, whether language based learning disabilities, auditory or visually based, the process can become difficult as well as costly for parents.
Parents soon discover that there are lots of professionals with a lot of opinions regarding diagnosing learning disabilities, dyslexia, brain impairment and a whole multitude of related conditions. They need to appreciative that when it comes to diagnosing learning disabilities, even the professionals agree that they frequently are not caused by one solitary problem, but by numerous problems, each overlapping and affecting the next. So if you have a child with language based learning disabilities, there is very often involvement from the auditory and visual systems, so that even in predominantly language based learning disabilities the other types of learning difficulties must not be overlooked.
It can be quite invaluable to diagnose learning disabilities early in a child’s life, as it can significantly benefit their school life and everyday life. In this day and age, with new advancements in technology and research, there are things that can be done, and therapies which can be pursued despite whether the child has visual, auditory or language based learning disabilities.
The key emphasis needs to be diagnosing learning disabilities as early as possible, because if we can do this we can restrict how far the child’s performance slips behind that of their peers. Thus diagnosing learning disabilities in a preschool or prep child and treating them properly is far better than diagnosing learning disabilities in a child who is in Grade 8, and facing years of catch up to improve their performance to that of the other children in the class. Also, the long term negative habits, loss of self-confidence and loss of self esteem so often seen in older children can be avoided if we are diagnosing learning disabilities in children early in the school career.
Diagnosing learning disabilities can be made much simpler if we view the individual areas distinct from the full difficulty. We have found that particular areas of learning disabilities may similarly actually help other outwardly non-related areas. So, for example, if we use vision therapy to teach and advance a child’s visual system, this may have the flow on effect of likewise helping language based learning disabilities, even whilst we may not have specially targeted these areas in our therapy!
As a Behavioral Optometrist, I frequently diagnose children with vision rather than language based learning disabilities. If I find significant language based learning disabilities, I continually refer to local speech therapists who can work specifically in those areas. Some children, in reality a lot of children, have a assortment of these problems, but can just afford to do one type of therapy (usually the worst area). If we have found vision is the more critical when diagnosing learning disabilities, then we may treat the question with vision therapy, merely to find that the child’s speech and language difficulties start to advance as well.
Maybe a good question would be, “which is the easiest and most cost successful difficulty to treat?” Until lately, almost all therapy options were very high-priced, costing thousands of dollars and lasting years, but with the advent of the internet that has all changed!
Now you can access a full 6 month, professional grade vision therapy course for less than $100, and this makes vision therapy an enormously cost efficient and viable option for parents worldwide. If your child struggles with vision, auditory or language based learning disabilities, why not check out our site for free information and an 8 day minicourse. Don’t be diagnosing learning disabilities simply to do nothing to help your child when free information and very inexpensive therapies are now available to help you.
Darin Browne is a Behavioral Optometrist who lives in Queensland, Australia. He has recently designed an astounding Home Based Vision Therapy Course, which offers over 180 pages of teaching and therapies, empowering parents to instruct their own children’s visual skills and see positive, sustainable progress in their reading, writing and spelling. For a FREE Ecourse which includes some of these therapies, check out Diagnosing Learning Disabilities
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