Overview

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) states that Specific Learning Disabilities occur in 1 out of 7 Americans. Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) are a complex cluster of neurobiological deficits that can severely interfere with a child’s or an adult’s ability to process information despite having the intellectual capacity to learn.

Approximately 15% of the population of the United States has some type of Specific Learning Disability according to the NIH. Moderate to severe Specific Learning Disabilities that are undiagnosed and/or inappropriately treated greatly decrease a person’s ability to succeed in school, the workplace, and life.

Incidence Rate of SLD: Children and Adults in the U. S.

The U.S. Department of Education’s most recent report to Congress, entitled 27th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2005 states that over 2,880,000 children were diagnosed with moderate to severe Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) in 2004. This number represents more than 50% of all children being served in special education programs in the United States.

At the end of the 2006-2007 school year, the Pennsylvania Department of Education reported that a total of 266,440 school age (6-21) students had documented disabilities and were enrolled in the special education programs in the state. Over 54% or 143,976 of these children were diagnosed with Specific Learning Disabilities.

SLD represent approximately 50% of all documented disabilities in children. There are children in the United States with SLD who remain undiagnosed and/or inadequately served.

Accurate data on the incidence of SLD in the adult population is not as readily available since there is no federal mandate to identify or track adults with SLD. However, some assumptions can be made. Professionals in the field believe that adults with the poorest literacy skills have the highest prevalence of SLD. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) completed an extensive assessment of adults’ reading ability in 2003. NCES concluded that 27 to 31 million adults lacked the skills necessary for simple, everyday literacy activities such as reading news articles, food labels, simple documents or bus schedules.