We hear a lot in the news and through our schools about what learning difficulties are, and so the solutions are often based on how we learn at school or in an academic environment. The truth is that not only children are affected by learning difficulties, as they can affect us all at some time or another during our lives.
It is probably easiest to start with what a learning difficulty is not:
- It is not a lack of intelligence
- It is not a need to try harder
- It is not a psychiatric disorder
- It is not wilfulness or misbehaviour
- It is not something that you are stuck with
Confusion over what learning difficulties are:
Learning difficulties are sometimes called learning disorders, learning disabilities, or cognitive weakness, and complicated diagnostic names are given to some of the conditions such as dyslexia, hyperlaxia, dyspraxia or Perceptuo-Motor Dysfunction. Labels and diagnoses can impact on the self-esteem of the person who is facing the learning challenges.
Learning difficulties are sometimes called learning disorders, learning disabilities, or cognitive weakness, and complicated diagnostic names are given to some of the conditions such as dyslexia, hyperlaxia, dyspraxia or Perceptuo-Motor Dysfunction. Labels and diagnoses can impact on the self-esteem of the person who is facing the learning challenges.
It is challenging to describe what a learning difficulty is because it can take so many forms. The brain is a processor of information, and sometimes the learning pathways are not formed, or are damaged so that difficulties with learning are the result. The processing of all kinds of sensory information, and body movement can be involved in what a learning difficulty is, and it affects how a person understands and reacts to things.
There are many avenues in the UK for the diagnosis and treatment of learning difficulties, including resources in the NHS and Mencap. This ICPKP UK website is not aiming to undermine or compete with them in any way, and we would always recommend any diagnosis to be undertaken by those with medical and diagnostic skills. All kinds of testing are available to determine what learning difficulties a person is facing.
How Kinesiopractic® can help with “learning difficulties”?
Once your diagnosis has been made, or you have a suspicion that you are struggling with what is known as learning difficulties, there are a number of ways a trained ICPKP Kinesiopractor® can help.
We have training in helping you create new approaches to learning, unblocking historic issues around learning from your past, and helping you move these blocks from your body tissues. Since so much of learning involves motor movement, that is where our work begins to show its excellence. You can immediately see and feel, using manual muscle testing, that what is learning difficulties when you arrive for your appointment, becomes something that you can control and change yourself, so it becomes less stressful within the session, or sometimes over a series of sessions.
All our practitioners are trained in skilful and accurate muscle testing and can determine what kinds of things affect the brain/body connection so that easy learning is not able to take place. Once you and the kinesiopractor® are aware of what learning difficulties affect your muscle function, then it is a short step, or series of steps, to returning the body to peak performance. Once the body can show that learning difficulties are no longer a problem, the brain can process information easier.
The brain is a very flexible organ and it continually learns and expands its neural pathways to process new experiences. This is the ability that the Kinesiopractor® works with – our body’s amazing capacity to relearn things that haven’t worked well before. Your ICPKP Kinesiopractor will work with many muscles so that you get a whole brain/body response to new learning techniques. There are more ways of doing things than we can possibly learn at school.
Solutions for the parent who is figuring out What is learning difficulties?
- Along with learning all about your child’s challenges, you may begin to recognise your own past learning style and behaviour in what they are doing. The Kinesiopractor® can work with you too to help you remove your own learning blocks to make your own processing of information easier. What is learning difficulties for your child will often be mirrored by behaviours from another family member.
- You will know more than most what the challenge of is of learning difficulties in the home as well as at school. You will have your own ways of coping with the emotional upheaval of living with a child with learning difficulties. Keeping your sense of humour is important, and learning ways to handle your own stress during the process. Kinesiopractors® will work with you to design a stress handling programme for you and will teach you ways to stay calm in challenging situations with your child.
- You may have to learn to speak up for your child or relative, and for some of us who are not used to this kind of championing, the Kinesiopractor® can help you build your sense of strength so that you have the inner resources to be a greater help to your child.
Whole of life recognition for what learning difficulties are
We can be affected by our learning blocks in many aspects of life, not just book and classroom learning. What many of us experience as problems in our relationships, friendships or in the workplace often boils down to the fact that it the way we perceive something, or the way we wrongly process some information is based on what our learning difficulty is.