A Study of Learning Disorders

This paper illustrates a study involving disadvantaged children with significant learning disorders. Each child was studied by a multidisciplined team of medical psychological hearing, language and educational specialists. The predominant underlying basis for the learning disorder proved to be a neurological handicap in over 50% of the children studied. Approximately one quarter of the children had significant emotional disturbance as the predominant cause of their inability to learn. Disadvantaged children in the urban slums frequently manifest poor performance in school resulting in numerous early school drop-outs. Cultural deprivation and inappropriate educational processes have received critical attention as important causative factors responsible for these widespread learning problems of the city child. However, too little attention has been focused on the specific learning disabilities of individual children who live in deprived neighborhoods. The present study describes the spectrum of the specific learning disorders encountered in 306 affected disadvantaged urban children whose care is provided by a federally supported comprehensive child health center. Most significant is the finding that neurologic handicaps of varying degrees are the main causative factor in over 50% of these inner-city children with learning disorders.