ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

Academic achievement represents all the skills and information acquired through schooling and explicit instruction. This domain, when assessed via norm-referenced standardized assessments, is typically divided up into four areas: oral language, reading, mathematics, and written language.

Academic achievement tests are administered to allow the opportunity to observe students completing academic tasks and to determine if they are achieving at potential.  Standard scores, when compared to measures of ability, are often good indicators of whether a child is functioning at the expected level. When these scores differ significantly, a diagnosis of Specific Learning Disability (IDEA, 2004) or Specific Learning Disorder (DSM-V) may be appropriate.

Although there is not one indicator that a person has a learning disability, parents may look out for several signs of difficulty (listed below). Most learning disabilities tend to be identified in elementary school. If a child shows any of these problems, parents and teachers should consider the possibility of a learning disability. 

Oral Language:

  • A child may learn late or have a limited vocabulary
  • A child may have trouble following directions
  • A child may mispronounce words or use a wrong word that sounds similar
  • A child may have difficulty understanding jokes, comic strips or sarcasm
  • A child may not be able to retell a story in order (first, second, last)
  • A child may not know where to begin a task or how to go on from there
  • A child may not follow the social rules of conversation, such as taking turns, or invading others space

Reading:

  • A child may have trouble learning the alphabet letters
  • A child may have difficulty connecting letters or groups of letters to their sounds (phonemes)
  • A child may have trouble manipulating phonemes (e.g., rhyming, identifying initial or ending sounds of words)
  • A child may make mistakes when reading aloud, pause often, or repeat certain words or sentences
  • A child may not understand (comprehend) when he or she reads

Writing:

  • A child may have trouble with spelling
  • A child may have writing that is difficult to read or may hold a pencil awkwardly
  • A child may struggle to express his or her thoughts or ideas in writing
  • A child may have trouble organizing what he or she wants to say or not be able to think of the word he or she needs for writing or conversation

Mathematics:

  • A child may have trouble learning the numbers
  • A child may have difficulty learning one-to-one correspondence 
  • A child may confuse math symbols and misread numbers
  • A child may have difficulty with mathematics problem-solving tasks, such as mathematics word problems, understanding time or reading graphs