Page 154 - The Intentional Parent

tooth decay and is not a very nutritious substance, so if you are looking for a reason to keep kids away from sugar there are plenty to choose from besides hyperactivity.
LEARNING DISABILITIES
Just recently we were informed that our nine-year-old daughter has a learning disability. My husband and I went to several meetings at the school, but we came away feeling more and more confused after each one. Can you explain what a learning disability is and where it comes from?
It is a lot easier to explain what a learning disability is than where it comes from. No one is that sure where learning disabilities come from, and to tell you the truth, we have made little progress trying to figure it out.
To understand what a learning disability is you must
first understand the difference between the words potential and performance. Potential refers to the natural capacity a child has with regard to learning. This is sometimes measured by an intelligence test, which is given in school. Performance refers to how that potential is being expressed. For instance, performance tests will tell you at what grade level your child is reading. In other words, potential tells you how big the container is, and performance tells you how full that container is. The average IQ score ranges from about 85 to 115. A third grader with an average IQ should read on the third-grade level. By this we are saying that an average kid does average work in an average class, which is a pretty straightforward concept. When a child has a learning disability, he may be an average kid in terms of his measured intelligence, but he may be in the third grade and only doing first-grade reading work. His performance (first-grade
The Intentional Parent by Peter J. Favaro, Ph.D. 154