LD In Depth
Social and Emotional Problems Related To Learning Disabilities
Dealing with social and emotional challenges is part of every day, but it can be particularly challenging for any individual with learning disabilities (LD). Learning disabilities can affect many skills including listening, thinking, speaking, reading, writing, mathematics and reasoning – skills that individuals must use every day to fulfill their roles as students, family members, employees and citizens. Learning disabilities may occur with, and be complicated by problems in social skills. Children with learning disabilities grow up to become adults with learning disabilities.
The consequences of their learning disabilities, however, changes. While the setting shifts from school to work and community, the implications are equally significant. The child with learning disabilities may rely on family and school for support. The adult with learning disability often struggles to find a support system and this puts many at increased risk of mental health problems. If not supported, these may lead to more severe mental illnesses.
As a consequence of struggling day in and day out at school, many individuals with LD perceive themselves as less competent. Professionals need to recognize the logical consequence of increased feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, lower self-esteem and lack of assertive skills that arise as the result of living day in and day out with a learning disability. In particular for adults who were inadequately or not identified and even less likely to have been treated.
Anxiety is the most frequent emotional symptom reported by individuals with learning disabilities. Individual with LDs become fearful because of their constant frustration and confusion in school. These feelings are exacerbated by the inconsistencies of learning disabilities. Because they cannot anticipate failure, entering new situations provokes extreme levels of anxiety.
Anxiety causes human beings to avoid whatever frightens them. The individual with LD is no exception. However, many teachers, parents and spouses misinterpret this avoidance behavior as laziness. In fact, the individual with LD's hesitancy to participate in activities such as homework or work related activities is related more to anxiety and confusion than to apathy.
Frustration and anger
Many of the problems caused by learning disabilities occur out of frustration with school or social situations. Researchers have frequently observed that frustration produces anger. This can be clearly seen in many individual with LDs.
The obvious target of the individual with LD's anger would be schools and teachers. However, it is also common for the individual with LD to vent his anger on his parents. Mothers are particularly likely to feel the individual with LD's wrath. Often, the child sits on his anger during school to the point of being extremely passive. However, once he is in the safe environment of home, these very powerful feelings erupt and are often directed toward the mother. Ironically, it is the child's trust of the mother that allows him to vent his anger. However, this becomes very frustrating and confusing to the parent who is desperately trying to help her child.
This anger is particularly evident in adolescents. By its very nature, learning disabilities causes children to become more dependent on the adults in their environment. They need extra tutoring and help with their homework.
As youngsters reach adolescence, society expects them to become independent. The tension between the expectation of independence and the child's learned dependence causes great internal conflicts. The adolescent individual with LD uses his anger to break away from those people on which he feels so dependent.
Because of these factors, it may be difficult for parents to help their teenage individual with LD. Instead, peer tutoring or a concerned young adult may be better able to intervene and help the child. The individual with LD's self-esteem appears to be extremely vulnerable to frustration and anxiety. Research shows that if children succeed in school, they will develop positive feelings about themselves and believe that they can succeed in life.
If children meet failure and frustration, they learn that they are inferior to others, and that their efforts make very little difference. Instead of feeling powerful and productive, they learn that their environment acts upon them. They feel powerless and incompetent.
Researchers have learned that when typical learners succeed, they credit their own efforts for their success. When they fail, they tell themselves to try harder. However, when the individual with LD succeeds, he is likely to attribute his success to luck. When he fails, he simply sees himself as stupid.
Research also suggests that these feelings of inferiority develop by the age of ten. After this age, it becomes extremely difficult to help the child develop a positive self-image. This is a powerful argument for early intervention.
Depression
Depression is also a frequent complication in learning disabilities and individuals with LD are at higher risk for intense feelings of sorrow and pain. Perhaps because of their low self-esteem, individual with LDs afraid to turn their anger toward their environment, instead turn it toward themselves.
However, depressed children and adolescents often have different symptoms than do depressed adults. The depressed child is unlikely to be lethargic or to talk about feeling sad. Instead, he or she may become more active or misbehave to cover up the painful feelings. In the case of masked depression, the child may not seem obviously unhappy. However, both children and adults who are depressed tend to have three similar characteristics:
- First, they tend to have negative thoughts about themselves, i.e., a negative self-image.
- Second, they tend to view the world negatively. They are less likely to enjoy the positive experiences in their life. This makes it difficult for them to have fun.
- Finally, most depressed youngsters have great trouble imagining anything positive about the future. The depressed individual with LD not only experiences great pain in his present experiences, but also foresees a life of continuing failure.
Family Impact
Like any handicapping condition, learning disabilities has a tremendous impact on the child's family. However, because learning disabilities is an invisible handicap, these effects are often overlooked. Learning disabilities affects the family in a variety of ways. One of the most obvious is sibling rivalry. Non LD children often feel jealous of the sibling with LD, who gets the majority of the parents' attention, time, and money. Ironically, the child with LD does not want this attention. This increases the chances that he or she will act negatively against the achieving children in the family.
Specific learning disabilities can run in families. This means that one or both of the child's parents may have had similar school problems. When faced with a child who is having school problems, individual with LD parents can react in one of two ways. They may deny the existence of learning disabilities and believe if the child would just buckle down, he or she could succeed. Or, the parents may relive their failures and frustrations through their child's school experience. This brings back powerful and terrifying emotions, which can interfere with the adult's parenting skills.
Helping individual with LD feel better about themselves and deal effectively with their feelings is a complex task. First, teachers must understand the cognitive and affective problems caused by learning disabilities. Then they must design strategies that will help the individual with LD, like every other child, to find joy and success in academics and personal relationships. Second, counselors and LD advocates must:
- Educate yourself about learning disabilities and their impact on day to day living.
- Recognize and accept that children with a learning disability grow up to be adults with a learning disability.
- Listen carefully to what your clients are saying
- Not assume that all individuals with histories of learning disabilities will experience emotional problems but recognize that all will be affected to some extent.
- Understand that adults with learning disabilities can and do experience more life and vocational problems than others.
- Help your client to find out what their strengths are. Many individuals with LD use other strengths to compensate for their disabilities and develop a variety of coping strategies, allowing them to function in every day life.
- Listen carefully when taking a history. An undiagnosed learning disability may, in some individuals, represent a significant variable to explain the course of reported emotional problems.
- Not be afraid to act. Be prepared to put some time into the process of obtaining a diagnosis whether it be that of a learning disability or of a mental illness.
- Offer support and empathy.
- Provide counseling to help the individual accept and understand how their learning disability affects their life and teach strategies and techniques to work around their disability.
With increased community acceptance and recognition that learning disability are lifelong, medical, mental health and educational professionals are going to find themselves supporting many more individuals with learning disabilities.
Source: Adapted with permission from Fact Sheet # 49 International Dyslexia Association and from Dr. Sam Goldstein, July 2000 – SamGoldstein.com monthly article.
