Specific Learning Disorder: Challenges and Intricacies for a Practicing Psychiatrist

Abstract

Specific Learning Disorder (SLD) is one of the common diagnoses often encountered in psychiatry(1). As with many neurodevelopmental disorders early identification, specific intense remediation, appropriate management of comorbid conditions, coordination with teachers and parents and engaging the child long-term are the mainstay of management of SLD. Each of these steps pose unique challenges due to the inherent complexity of SLD, lack of uniform, standardised curriculum and testing methods, wide regional variations in definition, assessment and certification in SLD, strained relationship between professionals of various disciplines and lack of custommade tools for screening, assessment and follow-up in native (Indian) languages(2).