Why do children have learning difficulties?

The most common problem seen in child psychology clinics is a child’s learning difficulties and the range of other problems that result from learning difficulties, such as mood disorders, conduct disorders, bad habits and behavioral deviations. What are the causes of a child’s learning difficulties? The most common cause is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also known as ADHD. Due to easy distraction, short attention span, weak self-control, impulsiveness, lack of patience, procrastination in doing homework and repeated urging from parents, many small movements in class, easy conflict with classmates, tension among classmates, etc., although the child’s intelligence is normal, but because of the inability to concentrate on learning, resulting in academic performance lagging behind or unstable, not up to the level. ADHD is a chronic condition, not because the child is deliberately naughty and mischievous, and requires timely treatment to improve learning ability to improve performance. Next is learning skills disorder. This is caused by histological changes in the brain, changes in the cortical neural connection pathways, and some believe it is due to an imbalance between the left and right side of brain development. Some children exhibit reading skills disorders: poor recognition and spelling accuracy, comprehension difficulties, lack of reading fluency, inability to read silently, and inability to comprehend or recall what they have read after reading. Some are also accompanied by difficulties with writing, poor handwriting, writing struggles, transcription errors, and reluctance to do homework due to easy fatigue. Some children exhibit dyscalculia in mathematical computational skills: number, confusion in number concepts, number symbol naming, comprehension and expression, counting, basic arithmetic and mathematical reasoning disorders, which seriously affect learning. Other children are affected by the presence of neurodevelopmental problems in vision, hearing, touch, proprioception, and balance and motor coordination, which affect learning ability, clumsy movements, difficulty in reading, difficulty in listening comprehension, difficulty in writing and drawing, and visual and visual inversions of missing words and skipping words and writing errors. There are also some children with critical intelligence and learning incompetence; there are emotional-behavioral problems such as poor state of mind, anorexia, withdrawal from difficulties, maladjustment in school, eating and sleeping problems, over-dependence on parents, sloppy living, depression and anxiety, oppositional defiance, and poor family relationships that affect the child’s ability to learn and lead to a loss of motivation. The type of learning difficulty a child has can be understood through a number of psychological tests, such as intelligence tests, attention tests, psycho-behavioral tests, sensory integration tests, and balance function tests. We can then treat the problem accordingly, improving the child’s learning ability through a combination of medical and educational approaches, special skills compensation training, behavior therapy, and medication. Psychological support from parents and teachers is especially important because children with learning difficulties have a high level of failure experience and tend to develop a poor sense of self, making basic motivation and self-esteem compromised.