The Study On The Characteristics Of Learning Disabilities

The studies on mentality for children with learning disabilities (short for LD) through cognition have been focus in the psychology, education and medical science for nearly 40 years. But because of the limitation of the theories, methods and means, their studies on the characteristics of children with disabilities lack an organic whole, and the researches can't provide the correct information about the cognition for different type learning disabilities. However, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Fourth Edition (short for WISC-IV) is based on multiple contemporary intelligence theory, and also reflects the development of contemporary cognitive psychology and neuropsychology. Compared with the third edition, it's not only an update of the materials and subjects, but also expands some new scales and sub-tests in the forth scale. In addition, the WISC–IV provides a measure of general intellectual functioning (FSIQ) and four index scores. The four index scores are the Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI), the Perceptual Reasoning Index (PRI), the Working Memory Index (WMI), and the Processing Speed Index (PSI). Therefore, the WISC-IV provides a new perspective to probe the characteristics of LD in a more comprehensive and profound way. So I used the Pupil Rating Scale for Children with LD to select three types LD containing Verbal LD, Nonverbal LD, Complex LD ,then I did the study on the cognitive process of LD to reveal reasons leading to learning problems as well as to give so useful advices for LD by the WISC-IV.The results show that: the IQ of the learning disabilities is at a normal level, but it's significantly lower than the normal children. Additionally, their indexes containing PRI, WMI and PSI are significantly lower than the normal ones, while the VIC has no difference in children .Besides, we found that the WMI of the learning disabilities is the most serious cognitive deficit and it's the common feature of the three types. In addition ,all of the learning disabilities are poor in PRI, PSI, but there are no significant differences in VCI among nonverbal learning disabilities ,verbal learning disabilities and the normal ones, while the dual learning disabilities are poorer than the others.