Auditory processing difficulties

This type of learning disability affects the ability to make sense of the information taken in by the ears. It affects not what is heard but how the information is processed. Auditory processing disabilities affect phonological awareness, which is the ability to understand that individual sounds are put together to make words. This is fundamental to reading. The difficulties result in the inability to recognize or isolate individual sounds in words, recognize similarities between words, or identify the number of sounds in words, which can all affect reading, writing and language. The disability impacts a learner's auditory memory. He/she may have difficulty storing and recalling information that is heard (i.e. verbal instructions and/or taking phone messages). Learners experiencing the inability to list the order of sounds in a word (auditory sequencing) have challenges with spelling. These challenges also weaken their ability to put sounds together to make words. Learners can also mix up sounds when saying them and substitute letters in words.

Learners may struggle with:

• Long words
• Pronunciation
• Rhyming
• Spelling based on known words
• Speaking

Organizational processing difficulties

This form of learning disability causes learners to struggle with their ability to think logically and organize their thoughts. They have trouble with comprehension-related activities like understanding the meaning of questions. Learners with an organizational disability have trouble constructing answers to questions quickly. When they are given extra time to understand the question and frame an answer, they can succeed.