Chapter 5.Specific Learning Disorder

According to DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association 2013), specific learning disorder (LD) comprises a heterogeneous group of disorders charac-terized by persistent difficulties with learning academic skills in a variety of domains, including reading, spelling, written expression, and mathematics (Box 5-). The symptoms of specific LD must have persisted for at least 6 months, even though interventions that target those difficulties were provided. Furthermore, the affected academic skills must be substantially and quantifiably below levels expected for the person’s age and cause interference with academic or occupational performance or with activities of daily living (based on a clinical synthesis of the individual’s history, school reports, and psychoeducational assessment). The learning difficulties are not accounted for by intellectual disabilities, by uncorrected problems with visual or auditory acuity, or by lack of language proficiency, inadequate educational instruction, or psychosocial adversity. The academic domains and subskills that are impaired are specified within each of the following domains: reading (word reading accuracy, reading rate or fluency, reading comprehension), written expression (spelling accuracy, grammar and punctuation accuracy, clarity or organization of written expression), and mathematics (number sense, memorization of arithmetic facts, calculation fluency or accuracy, accurate math reasoning). Finally, the severity of the LD is identified.