
Learning disabilities are neurological disorders that result from the way the brain is “wired.” Most often they are genetically linked. Imagine the brain is like a computer. The keyboard and microphone would be the sensory organs that take in the information, and the computer is the central processing unit that processes the information that is delivered. While this is not a perfect analogy, it does provide the idea that the eyes and ears are the sense organs that take in visual and auditory information. The brain then has specific areas that process or make sense of that information. If there is a glitch in ones of those areas of the brain, then the person will have difficulty making sense of visual or auditory information. They will then have difficulty in one of these specific areas; reading decoding (the ability to sound out words), reading fluency, reading comprehension, written expression, oral expression (putting thoughts into words), understanding oral communication (listening), or mathematics.