LEARNING DISABILITY SYMPTOM CHECKLIST

Nancy Cowardin, Ph.D.

 ACADEMIC DEFICITS:

            1.      Poor grades despite adequate school attendance

            2.      Reads or writes at childish levels

            3.      History of special education class enrollment

            4.      Low yearly achievement test scores in school cum file

            5.      Spiky profile (both high and low skills)

            6.      Lacks general age-appropriate information

 ATTENTION DEFICITS:           

             8.       Recall shows "hit and miss" attending to content

             9.       Can be easily distracted from task

            10.     Needs redirection or prompting to complete tasks

 SPEECH-LANGUAGE DEFICITS:

            11.     Needs restatement, simplification or repetition of questions and directions 

            12.     Talks a lot but makes little sense

            13.     Missing or incorrect labels for nouns/verbs

            14.     Speech/articulation problems

            15.     Generally hard to communicate with

 PHYSICAL DISABILITY CLUES:

            16.     History of maternal drugs, birth injury or head trauma

            17.     Family member has similar disabilities

 ADAPTIVE SKILL DEFICITS:

            18.     Problems communicating information to others

            19.     Behaves immaturely and/or has younger friends

            20.     Acts randomly without considering possible consequences

            21.     Cannot apply academic skills to daily living

 SOCIAL-BEHAVIORAL DEFICITS:

            22.     Impulsivity (makes fast, bad decisions)

            23.     No plan, half-plan, or abandons plan once action is underway

            24.     Emotional mood swings

            25.     Needs outside direction in a crisis

            26.     Odd, immature, disorganized or poorly accepted by others

            27.     Used by peers as scapegoat or "go-for"

            28.     Easily led, bribed or cajoled to self-incriminate

            29.     Lacks confidence in own decision-making

            30.     Misinterprets social gestures, facial expressions or environmental cues

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