Psychiatry and Learning Disorders

Abstract

This chapter explores the role of the psychiatrist in treating children with learning disabilities (LDs), which are often not addressed in a medical model, covering the diagnosis and treatment of learning disabilities illustrated by five clinical vignettes. Learning disabilities may not be a primary focus of the assessment and treatment in a psychiatric medical model even though a learning disability will impact the way a child interacts with the world. This creates an additional hurdle in finding providers who could help the families in appreciating how learning disabilities impact children and ways to treat this. To complicate matters, learning disabilities can have overlapping symptoms with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), developmental coordination disorder, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), autism spectrum disorder, and other disorders. Resulting from the potential distress and isolation from a learning disability, children can also experience depression and anxiety, which could become the focus of treatment and even distract from the primary stressors. This chapter explains how a treatment team should be created to help the child and family if a diagnosis of a learning disorder is confirmed. The team should include professionals who can advise about school placement, ways to optimize learning, the potential need for different types of therapies including social skills groups, and psychotropic medications. Psychotropic medications, which are explored in detail, can be considered to target specific symptoms such as attention, organization, impulsivity, anxiety, depression, or irritability. The five clinical vignettes help illustrate the impact of learning disabilities on a child’s development and engagement with family, friends, school, and the world.