Learning Disorders - Symptoms

A child's performance in school may offer clues to the presence of a learning disorder. Some children earn high scores on intelligence tests, suggesting that the child should do well in school, but the grades that he or she receives may be far below what those tests predict. This may be a sign of a learning disorder.

A child's schoolwork may also display symptoms of a learning disorder. A boy or girl may confuse words, switch words and letters around, or add or omit syllables from words. These symptoms suggest the presence of a reading disorder.

Symptoms of a writing disorder may often be seen in the kind of written work a student produces. The work may be filled with spelling, grammatical, punctuation, and other errors. The child's handwriting may also be poor.

Children with mathematical disorders often cannot count in the correct sequence. They may not be able to name numbers and perform mathematical operations, such as addition and subtraction.