Noah felt like he was always hitting the books. While his friends were meeting for pickup soccer games after school, he was back home in his room reading and rereading the same material. But no matter how hard Noah studied, he had difficulty remembering things and his grades stayed average. Meanwhile, his friend Sean, who never seemed to study, always aced tests. It didn't seem fair. Because Noah was so frustrated  , his dad and teachers made an appointment with the school psychologist. She diagnosed   Noah with a learning disability. Although Noah felt relieved to know what was going on, he was also worried. He didn't like the "disability" label. And he was concerned about what it might mean for his future. Would he be able to go to college and study engineering as he'd hoped? For someone diagnosed with a learning disability, it can seem scary at first. But a learning disability doesn't have anything to do with a person's intelligence. After all, such successful people as Walt Disney, Alexander Graham Bell, and Winston Churchill all had learning disabilities. Learning disabilities are problems that affect the brain's ability to receive, process, analyze, or store information. These problems can make it difficult for a student to learn as quickly as someone who isn't affected by learning disabilities. The way our brains process information is extremely complex --- it's no wonder things can get messed up sometimes. Take the simple act of looking at a picture, for example: Our brains not only have to form the lines into an image, they also have to recognize what the image stands for, relate that image to other facts stored in our memories, and then store this new information. It's the same thing with speech - we have to recognize the words, interpret the meaning, and figure out the significance of the statement to us. Many of these activities take place in separate parts of the brain, and it's up to our minds to link them all together. If, like Noah, you've been diagnosed with a learning disability, you're not alone. Nearly four million school-age children and teens have learning disabilities, and at least 20% of them have a type of disorder that makes it difficult to focus. No one's exactly sure what causes learning disabilities. But researchers do have some theories as to why they develop. What do you guess the author will go on writing?   _
Some tips to get over learning disabilities. What to do with learning disabilities. What causes learning disabilities. Some theories of how to learn well.