Some Common Signs of SLD and AD/HD

What are some common signs of a Specific Learning Disability or an Attentional Disorder?

All children exhibit some of the following behaviours and characteristics at times. The presence of one or two of these signs may not be significant, but a cluster of these behaviours requires further assessment.

In Infancy

  • Trouble with nursing, sucking or digesting
  • Resistance to cuddling and body contact
  • Lack of, or excessive response to sounds or other stimulus
  • Trouble following movements with eyes
  • Unusual sleep patterns
  • Delays in sitting, standing, walking
  • Absence of creeping and crawling
  • Little or no vocalization
  • Irritability  

Preschool

  • Speaks later than most children and has immature speech patterns
  • Slow vocabulary growth, often unable to find the right words, pronunciation problems
  • Difficulty rhyming words
  • Trouble learning numbers, alphabet, days of the week, colors, shapes
  • Extremely restless and easily distracted
  • Trouble interacting with peers
  • Difficulty following directions or routines
  • Difficulty with dressing
  • Fine motor skills slow to develop
  • Exaggerated response to excitement or frustration
  • Tendency to trip, or bump into things
  • Cannot skip, has trouble bouncing and catching a ball  

Grades K-4

  • Slow to learn the connection between letters and sounds
  • Confuses basic words (run, eat, want)
  • Makes consistent reading and spelling errors including letter reversals (b/d), inversion (m/w), transposition (felt/left), and substitutions (house/home)
  • Transposes number sequences and confuses arithmetic signs (+, -, x, /, =)
  • Slow to remember facts
  • Slow to learn new skills, relies heavily on memorization
  • Impulsive, difficulty planning
  • Unstable pencil grip, poor printing, writing
  • Trouble learning about the concept of or telling time
  • Poor coordination, unaware of physical surroundings, prone to accidents
  • Difficulty cutting with scissors, coloring and printing inside lines
  • Cannot tie laces, button clothes, or get dressed
  • Reads but does not comprehend
  • Difficulty playing with more then one child at a time, may prefer to play alone
  • Difficulty remembering the names of things: the seasons, the months, streets, etc.
  • Does not understand the difference between 'up and down'; 'top and bottom'; 'in and out'; 'front of and behind; etc.  

Grades 5-8

  • Reverses letter sequences (soiled/solid, left/felt)
  • Slow to learn prefixes, suffixes, root words and other spelling strategies
  • Avoids reading aloud
  • Trouble with word problems
  • Difficulty with handwriting
  • Awkward, fist-like, or tight pencil grip
  • Avoids writing compositions
  • Slow or poor recall of facts
  • Difficulty making friends
  • Trouble understanding body language and facial expressions
  • Difficulty expressing ideas and relating events in sequence  

Grades 9-12

  • Continues to spell incorrectly, frequently spells the same word differently in a single piece of writing, laborious handwriting
  • Avoids reading and writing tasks
  • Difficulty with putting thoughts on paper
  • Trouble summarizing
  • Trouble with open-ended questions on tests
  • Weak memory skills
  • Difficulty adjusting to new settings
  • Works slowly
  • Poor grasp of abstract concepts
  • Either pays too little attention to details or focuses on them too much
  • Misreads information/lacks logic, poor reasoning ability
  • Vulnerable to peer pressure, often the 'scapegoat' in situations
  • Difficulty organizing and/or concentrating on homework
  • Rarely relates past events or experiences in sequence or detail 

Organizational Problems (poor ability in organizing time or space, or sequencing)

  • Poor ability to organize time (missing deadlines, poor sense of time)
  • Poor ability to organize tasks (misunderstanding the steps required to carry out a particular task such as planning a party or a move)
  • Poor ability to organize space (difficulty in organizing a closet, desk, or laying out a page in a written document)
  • Impairment of executive function (difficulty in analysing, applying information in a new way or adapting to new circumstances)

Conceptual Problems (understanding abstract concepts, complex language, consequences and social cues)

  • Difficulty in interpreting non-verbal language (such as facial expressions or body language)
  • Difficulty in understanding figures of speech (such as idioms, metaphors or similes)
  • Difficulty in anticipating the future (difficulty with predicting consequences, purchase something today with borrowed money, may do something impulsive without considering the consequences)
  • Rigid thinking (inability to see that flexibility is required to deal with a situation, will not 'see' things in shades of grey but only in black and white)
  • Poor social skills and peer relations (difficulty in maintaining eye contact during a conversation, using an inappropriate tone of voice or language, lacking the social graces)

 

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