Learning disabilities

Over the past two decades, research relevant to understanding learning disabilities, particularly reading disability or “dyslexia,” has made much progress aided by improved cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging. Translation into intervention is in its infancy, except for the basic steps involved in reading, and even that restricted (early educational) range has only recently been informed by evidence. Even greater than the gap between brain research and knowledge about intervention is the gap between what is known and what is implemented in schools. A frustration for clinicians advocating for patients with LDs is that the most important interventions must be implemented outside the sphere of influence of medicine, in the zone where health and education overlap. Pressures to over-emphasize the diagnosis of ADHD (even when it is legitimate comorbidity of LD) and to exaggerate the benefits of stimulant medication (even when this is a legitimate part of a multifaceted intervention program) converge upon the medical clinician not only from schools but also from desperate parents. Clinicians and educators must join together in the use of bio-medical research methods to establish the nature of LD as well as provide evidence for effective interventions.