What Causes Learning Problems

I am often asked by perplexed parents what caused this learning problem in their child. There are three theories that presently explain the causes:

1.) There is a genetic component. These same problems came about with more than one generation.

2.) Environmental factors contributed. Perhaps the child didn’t crawl or walked too early. Or, maybe during an important development phase, the child was restricted to a walker or playpen. At any rate, the complete developmental process did not occur.

3.) Mild brain injury might have occurred. Difficult births where oxygen deprivation occurred, high fevers, and bumps on the head can cause mild damage that a neurological exam could miss.

In addition to these theories by experts, I have personally noticed a huge increase in the number of students with learning problems. I have found the following explanations to add to the list:

1.) Children are playing too many video and computer games and watching too much television. The right brain dominant child is especially attracted to the color and pictures of these activities, which in reality is harmful to their learning if done too much. These are activities that do not involve physical movement, and the brain needs physical movement to keep rewiring for learning.

2.) Our society is fast paced and children today get instant gratification. Kids today have fast food and high speed internet. They don’t have to wait for much. Because of this, they rarely have the opportunity to hold visual images in their minds. The need to hold and recall a visual image is extremely important for academic success in reading, writing, and math.

3.) Too much indoor time and not enough unstructured outdoor time. Kids today don’t roll down hills or hang upside down from trees. They aren’t allowed to stay out playing kick the can after dark. It’s just not safe. Instead, they are shuffled from school to soccer and back home for homework. The television runs constantly in most homes and children are drawn to this passive activity. Imaginative, unstructured time outdoors is missing, and the brain is suffering because of this.

4.) Early push of academics. Our new standards have given an increasingly harsh push on academics at increasingly earlier ages. Gone are our sandbox kindergartens where kids developed gross motor skills by marching and painting. They learned about the rhythm of our language by singing songs. They developed at their own pace and never had to do work they weren’t ready for. When young children are forced to learn academics before they are developmentally ready to, a learning problem can crop up later on.