The Clinical Approaches to Learning Disorder for Primary Physicians

ABSTRACT

It is not uncommon for children and adolescents with learning disabilities to have neurologically based disorders and other associated psychosocial problems. Those children have learning disorder need systematic psychiatric and neuropsychological evaluations for proper managements. Moreover many educational test instruments and special educational literatures use an information processing model for understanding learning and learning disabilities. Any learning disorders can involve more than one area in various dysfunctional processes; input disabilities (visual and auditory perceptions, and other sensory integrations), integration disabilities (sequencing, abstraction, and organization), memory disabilities, and output disabilities (language and motor). Individuals with learning disability require appropriate interventions, whether they are clinical or educational. They must be screened primarily by family physicians, pediatricians, and psychiatrists, and have psychosocial supports for themselves and their family, and then be referred to child and adolescent psychiatrists for optimal treatment planning and multimodal managements.