ADHD Vs Learning Disability

There has been an ongoing misconception in interpreting ADHD to be the same as learning disability. ADHD, acronym for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, is a condition that can seriously affect the learning ability of the child. But this does not mean however that all ADHD children have learning disabilities. In fact, it is said that only 30% of ADHD patients have true learning disabilities.

Nonetheless, the majority of ADHD children have general learning problems and not disabilities. Having a form of problem related to learning is different from learning disability because the former may be because of ADHD’s nature of having no focus at all. With this, the ADHD child will truly have a hard time learning new concepts because he cannot concentrate well. He easily shifts attention from one task to the other. It is like he has learning problems in all cognitive areas 24/7.

Learning disability, on the contrary, means that the child has a certain deficit in a single area or perhaps two or more areas. It’s the same as saying that even if a child has a learning disability to Math then it is not immediately assumed that he also has a disability in English. But this also implies that not all areas are affected and that the other areas are still normal. In the school setting, students who are suspected of having learning disabilities are those who have a significant disparity between the result of their achievement tests and their IQ.

To sum up, the learning problem in ADHD is more generalized in nature. This means that it affects most or all cognitive processes and not just a one, two, three, etc. it cannot be checked by means of administering a test unlike in learning disability.

Another difference between ADHD and learning disability is that the ADHD is more severe than learning disability. It has a deficit in cognition that can only be assessed and examined by professional doctors. The latter can be diagnosed by the school through their unique testing system to spot for areas of learning disabilities.

1. ADHD is a more serious cognitive medical disorder that may have a biologic cause.

2. ADHD can be diagnosed by medical doctors only whereas learning disability can be diagnosed by other professionals, aside from doctors, like those experts from the school.

3. ADHD has a more general effect on most or all learning areas while learning disability just affects one or two areas.

4. In learning disability, there is a distinct disability of learning that’s limited to certain areas while in ADHD there are multiple problems of learning.