Learning disability, on the other hand, is an official clinical diagnosis, whereby the individual meets certain criteria, as determined by a professional (such as a psychologist, psychiatrist, speech-language pathologist, or paediatrician).

People with a learning disability have trouble performing specific types of skills or completing tasks if left to figure things out by themselves or if taught in conventional ways.

Depending on the type and severity of the disability, interventions, and current technologies may be used to help the individual learn strategies that will foster future success.

Teachers, parents, and schools can create plans together that tailor intervention and accommodations to aid the individuals in successfully becoming independent learners.

This conflicted with the fact that many individuals who experienced central nervous system dysfunction, such as those with cerebral palsy, did not experience disabilities in learning.

On the other hand, those individuals who experienced multiple handicapping conditions along with learning disability frequently received inappropriate assessment, planning, and instruction.

In the 1980s, NJCLD, therefore, defined the term learning disability as: a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning or mathematical abilities.

Instead, it is a single diagnosis criterion describing drawbacks in general academic skills and includes detailed specifiers for the areas of reading, mathematics, and written expression.

[17][better source needed] The Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act 1973, effective May 1977, guarantees certain rights to people with disabilities, especially in the cases of education and work, such being in schools, colleges and university settings.

[21] The Lancet defines 'learning disability' as a "significant general impairment in intellectual functioning acquired during childhood", and states that roughly one in 50 British adults have one.

[22] In Japan, acknowledgement and support for students with learning disabilities has been a fairly recent development, and has improved drastically since the start of the 21st century.

[28] Research involving individuals with learning disabilities who exhibit challenging behaviors who are subsequently treated with antipsychotic medications provides little evidence that any benefits outweigh the risk.

The process does not take into account children's individual neuropsychological factors such as phonological awareness and memory, that can inform design instruction.

[8] Occupational therapists in particular can support students in the educational setting by helping children in academic and non-academic areas of school including the classroom, recess and meal time.

In the United States, there has been a growing need to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to provide effective school psychological services, specifically for those professionals who work with immigrant populations.

Students were commonly pushed toward testing, based on an assumption that their poor academic performance or behavioral difficulties indicated a need for special education.

[49][51] A compilation of these tests is used to assess whether an ELL student has a learning disability or merely is academically delayed because of language barriers or environmental factors.

[53] The purpose of assessment is to determine what is needed for intervention, which also requires consideration of contextual variables and whether there are comorbid disorders that must also be identified and treated, such as behavioral issues or language delays.

[38] These contextual variables are often assessed using parent and teacher questionnaire forms that rate the students' behaviors and compares them to standardized norms.

However, caution should be made when suspecting the person with a learning disability may also have dementia, especially as people with Down's syndrome may have the neuroanatomical profile but not the associated clinical signs and symptoms.

[64] Interventions include: Sternberg[69] has argued that early remediation can greatly reduce the number of children meeting diagnostic criteria for learning disabilities.

The landmark Supreme Court ruling Plyler v. Doe (1982) grants all children, no matter their legal status, the right to a free education.

Results suggest handwritten essays of students with and without disabilities consistently received higher scores compared to word processed versions.

[79][80][81][82][83] Since the turn of the 19th century, education in the United States has been geared toward producing citizens who can effectively contribute to a capitalistic society, with a cultural premium on efficiency and science.

While many studies have considered only one characteristic of the student at a time,[99] or used district- or school-level data to examine this issue, more recent studies have used large national student-level datasets and sophisticated methodology to find that the disproportionate identification of African American students with learning disabilities can be attributed to their average lower SES, while the disproportionate identification of Latino youth seems to be attributable to difficulties in distinguishing between linguistic proficiency and learning ability.

Also, using alternate sources of gathering information, such as websites, study groups and learning centers, can help a person with ADHD be academically successful.

The ability to express one's thoughts and opinions in an organized fashion and in written form is an essential life skill that individuals have been taught and practiced repetitively since youth.

Reading increases the attention span, allows exposure to a variety of genres and writing styles, and allows for the accumulation of a wide range of vocabulary.

[110] Studies suggest that students with learning disabilities typically have difficulty with word recognition, the process of connecting the text to its meaning.

Based on such patterns, early interventions such as reading and writing curriculums from a young age could provide opportunities for vocabulary acquisition and development.