Parent Checklist

SLD Characteristics

 

Parents are often the first people to notice that their child might be having difficulty learning. Below is a checklist of characteristics that may point to a learning disability.

 

It is normal for children to display one or more of these warning signs. However, if you see several of these characteristics over a long period of time, consider the possibility of a learning disability.

General and Developmental characteristics

  • Has a history of ear infections and/or grommets

  • Had speech therapy

  • Understanding of oral information is better than written information

  • A family member who has had difficulty learning

Preschool

  • Speaks later than most children

  • Mispronounces some words by putting the sounds in the wrong order or leaving sounds out

  • Slow to learn vocabulary, often unable to find the right word

  • Difficulty rhyming words

  • Trouble remembering the sounds of letters and learning numbers, alphabet, days of the week, colours and shapes

  • Difficulty following directions or routines

  • Fine motor skills slow to develop 

Primary school

  • Slow to learn the connection between letters and sounds

·       Difficulty with oral rhyming, syllabification, breaking apart the sounds in words and blending them back together

  • Confuses little words that look alike (e.g., who and how, was and saw).

  • Makes consistent reading and spelling errors including letter reversals (b/d), inversions (m/w), transpositions (felt/left), and substitutions (house/home)

  • Takes a long time to finish homework that requires reading

  • Reads slowly and often has to reread to understand what he/she is reading.

·       Spells words the way they sound, rather than how they look.

  • Spells the same word in different ways on the same page.

  • Transposes number sequences and confuses arithmetic signs (+, -, x, /, =)

  • Slow to remember facts

  • Slow to learn new skills, relies heavily on memorization

  • Difficulty completing tasks requiring working memory such as following instructions or remembering sequential information

  • Trouble learning about time

Intermediate School

  • Reverses letter sequences (soiled/solid, left/felt)

  • Slow to learn prefixes, suffixes, root words, and other spelling strategies

  • Avoids reading aloud

  • Trouble with word problems

  • Difficulty with handwriting

  • Avoids writing

  • Slow or poor recall of facts

  • Difficulty making friends

  • Trouble understanding body language and facial expressions 

High School Students

  • Continues to spell incorrectly, frequently spells the same word differently in a single piece of writing

  • Avoids reading and writing tasks

  • Trouble summarizing

  • Trouble identifying main points

  • Trouble with open-ended questions on tests

  • Weak memory skills

  • Difficulty adjusting to new settings

  • Works slowly

  • Poor grasp of abstract concepts

  • Either pays too little attention to details or focuses on them too much

  • Misreads information

  • Difficulty associating numbers with symbols

  • Cannot remember number facts

  • Confuses columns and spacing

  • Difficulties with mathematical word problems

  • Difficulty comprehending mathematical concepts