Pat Hatt’s Three Clusters of Learning Disabilities

In this section, Pat describes each of the learning disability clusters - visual, auditory and organizational – in terms of people’s abilities.

An Individual with Visual Processing Learning Disabilities:

• can sound out words
• can blend sounds
• can substitute letters
• can work with word families/ rhyming words
• tends to be very verbal, will chat
• can’t recognize words that they “know”
• has trouble with oral reading, stumbles, hesitates
• gets lost and uses finger to find spot
• spells based on the sounds
• has problems with irregular sounds (ough, eigh)
• reverses letters

A Person with Auditory Processing Learning Disabilities:

• can remember words they know
• guesses words that look like the word (ie. attraction or attractive)
• has trouble with big words
• says they have trouble with pronunciation
• can’t blend sounds well
• may know sounds but mixes them up when sounding out
• doesn’t respond to rhyming clues
• spells based on known words

A Person with Organizational Learning Disabilities:

• may take longer to understand and respond to your questions, but the quality of the answer is good
• may have trouble giving clear, concise answers to simple questions
• may need rewording of questions, but answer is good
• complains they have trouble focusing
• has trouble with attendance and follow through