Learning Difficulties & Disabilities
Comprehensive evaluation and support for dyslexia, dyscalculia, processing disorders, and other learning disabilities
A child who struggles to read, write, or do math — despite trying, despite instruction, despite your best efforts at home — is not lazy, unmotivated, or not smart enough. Learning disabilities are neurological differences in how the brain processes information. They have nothing to do with intelligence. And they are far more common, and far more treatable, than most families realize when they first start searching for answers.
At Help For Your Child, learning disability evaluations are conducted by Dr. John Carosso, Psy.D. — a licensed clinical psychologist with more than three decades of experience in psychoeducational assessment. A comprehensive evaluation from HFYC doesn't just identify the diagnosis. It maps your child's full cognitive and academic profile, explains what's driving the difficulty, and gives you the documentation and recommendations you need to advocate effectively at school.
Understanding Learning Disabilities
Learning disabilities are persistent neurological differences that affect how the brain processes, stores, or retrieves specific types of information. They are not caused by inadequate instruction, lack of effort, poor home support, or low intelligence. Many children with learning disabilities are highly intelligent — the disconnect between their intellectual ability and their academic performance is, in fact, one of the hallmarks of a learning disability and a key indicator that an evaluation is needed. Learning disabilities affect approximately 1 in 5 people to some degree — making them among the most common developmental conditions in children. They tend to run in families, and they do not resolve on their own. Without proper identification and support, the academic gap widens over time and the emotional toll accumulates. With the right diagnosis and the right accommodations, children with learning disabilities can and do succeed academically and professionally. The most common learning disabilities we evaluate at HFYC include: • Dyslexia — difficulty with accurate and fluent word reading, decoding, and spelling, rooted in phonological processing differences. The most common learning disability, affecting an estimated 15–20% of the population to some degree. • Dyscalculia — difficulty understanding number concepts, learning arithmetic facts, performing calculations, and reasoning mathematically. • Dysgraphia — difficulty with the physical act of writing and/or with written expression, including spelling, handwriting, and organizing thoughts on paper. • Language Processing Disorders — difficulty understanding or expressing spoken language, which affects listening comprehension, following directions, and verbal communication. • Auditory Processing Disorder — difficulty processing and making meaning of auditory information despite normal hearing acuity. • Visual Processing Disorder — difficulty interpreting visual information, which can affect reading, writing, and math. • Executive Function Deficits — difficulty with planning, organization, time management, working memory, and self-monitoring — which affect academic performance across all subjects.
The Connection Between Learning Disabilities and Other Conditions
Learning disabilities rarely exist in isolation. Research consistently shows that 30–50% of children with dyslexia also have ADHD — and the overlap with other conditions is similarly high. Anxiety and depression are also extremely common secondary consequences of undiagnosed or unsupported learning disabilities, developing as children accumulate years of frustration, failure, and social comparison. This is where Help For Your Child has a meaningful advantage over standalone educational testing centers or school-based evaluations. Because Dr. Carosso practices alongside Dr. Robert Lowenstein, M.D. — a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist — co-occurring ADHD, anxiety, or depression can be evaluated and treated in the same practice. Families don't have to navigate three separate providers. The full picture is assessed together. If your child's learning struggles are accompanied by attention difficulties, emotional dysregulation, anxiety about school, or a significant decline in self-esteem, that context matters — and it will be part of our evaluation.
What a Diagnosis Actually Gives You
Many families hesitate to seek an evaluation, uncertain what it will actually change. The answer is: quite a lot. A formal diagnosis from a licensed clinical psychologist is not a label — it is a tool. It gives you: • A clear, specific identification of your child's areas of difficulty and their underlying causes • A detailed picture of your child's cognitive strengths — which matter as much as the weaknesses for planning support • Legal documentation required to access school accommodations through an IEP or 504 Plan • Specific, actionable recommendations for intervention, instructional approaches, and home strategies • Testing accommodations for standardized tests, including the SAT, ACT, and college entrance exams • A framework that helps your child understand their own brain — reducing shame and building self-advocacy skills For many families, the evaluation report is the moment everything shifts. It explains why a bright child has been struggling. It validates what parents have been observing for years. And it gives schools a clear basis for providing the support the child is legally entitled to receive.
Warning Signs to Watch For
Difficulty learning to read despite adequate instruction and effort
Difficulty with spelling, even common or frequently-seen words
Difficulty with math facts or calculations that peers have mastered
Difficulty organizing thoughts or expressing ideas clearly in writing
Difficulty following multi-step directions
Difficulty with time management or organization across settings
Significant gap between apparent ability and academic performance
Avoidance of reading, writing, or homework — often mislabeled as laziness or defiance
Slow reading pace, losing place frequently, or needing to re-read passages repeatedly
High frustration, anxiety, or emotional distress related to school tasks
Our Treatment Approach
Comprehensive Psychoeducational Evaluation
Dr. Carosso conducts a thorough evaluation that includes standardized cognitive testing (measuring intellectual ability across multiple domains), academic achievement testing (reading, writing, math, and oral language), and assessment of processing abilities including phonological processing, working memory, processing speed, and executive function. Parent and teacher input is gathered through structured rating scales and clinical interview. The evaluation is designed to identify both areas of deficit and areas of strength — because knowing how a child learns best is as important as knowing where they struggle.
Detailed Report & Recommendations
Following the evaluation, Dr. Carosso prepares a comprehensive written report that includes the diagnosis, a clear explanation of the findings in parent-friendly language, and specific recommendations for school accommodations, instructional approaches, and home support strategies. This report is the clinical documentation required by schools to establish an IEP or 504 Plan, and by testing agencies to grant accommodations on standardized tests. A feedback session is scheduled with parents to walk through the findings, answer questions, and discuss next steps.
School Advocacy & Coordination
Receiving an evaluation report is one thing. Getting a school to act on it is another. We help families navigate the school system effectively — explaining what the IEP and 504 processes involve, what accommodations are appropriate given the findings, and how to communicate with school teams. Dr. Carosso or a member of our clinical team can attend IEP or 504 meetings when families want professional support at the table.
Treatment of Co-Occurring Conditions
If the evaluation identifies co-occurring ADHD, anxiety, or depression — as it frequently does — those conditions can be addressed within HFYC without requiring the family to seek additional providers. Dr. Carosso provides ongoing therapy and behavioral support. Dr. Lowenstein evaluates and manages psychiatric medication when appropriate. Having the evaluation and treatment under one roof means a coordinated approach rather than fragmented care.
Ongoing Therapeutic Support
Beyond the evaluation and school coordination, many children with learning disabilities benefit from therapeutic support that addresses the emotional consequences of years of academic struggle. Low self-esteem, school avoidance, anxiety, and a deep-seated belief that they are 'not smart' are common — and they respond well to therapy that helps children understand their own brains, build resilience, and develop genuine self-advocacy skills.
Your Child Deserves Support
If you recognize these signs in your child, reach out to us today. We're here to help.
Frequently Asked Questions
Learning disabilities do not resolve with age or maturity — they are lifelong neurological differences. What changes over time, with appropriate support, is the child's ability to develop compensatory strategies, use tools and accommodations effectively, and build on their strengths. Many adults with dyslexia, dyscalculia, and other learning disabilities live and work successfully — not because the disability went away, but because they learned how to work with the brain they have. Early identification and intervention significantly improves long-term outcomes. Waiting to see if a child 'catches up' typically means more years of struggle, more accumulated self-esteem damage, and a wider academic gap.
This is one of the most important questions parents of struggling learners face, and the honest answer is that private and school evaluations serve different purposes — and have meaningfully different scopes. A school evaluation is designed to determine whether a child qualifies for special education services under IDEA. It is focused on educational eligibility, not comprehensive clinical diagnosis. A private psychoeducational evaluation conducted by a licensed clinical psychologist is broader in scope, more detailed, includes a wider range of standardized measures, and produces a clinical diagnosis that carries legal weight beyond the school setting — including for standardized test accommodations (SAT, ACT, college) and for documentation purposes throughout the child's life.
Schools are not required to accept the findings of a private evaluation wholesale, but they are legally required to consider it. Under IDEA and Section 504, a private evaluation conducted by a qualified professional must be reviewed by the school team and taken into account in eligibility and placement decisions. If there is a disagreement between the private evaluation and the school's assessment, parents have the right to request an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) at the school's expense, or to pursue due process through the state education agency.
Yes — and in fact, high intelligence can mask a learning disability for years. Children with strong intellectual ability often develop compensatory strategies that allow them to perform adequately despite significant underlying processing difficulties. They work twice as hard to produce half the output, expending enormous cognitive effort on tasks that peers find automatic. This 'twice exceptional' profile — high cognitive ability combined with a specific learning disability — is one of the most commonly missed presentations in school-based evaluation, precisely because the child's overall performance doesn't look like failure.
They are distinct conditions that frequently co-occur. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting attention, impulse control, and executive function — it affects how a child engages with learning across all subjects. A learning disability is a specific processing deficit that affects performance in a particular academic domain (reading, math, or writing) regardless of attention. A child with dyslexia will struggle to read even when they are fully attentive and trying their best. A child with ADHD may struggle to read because they can't sustain attention long enough to decode the text. Both can produce similar surface behaviors — which is why a thorough evaluation that assesses both cognitive processing and attentional functioning is important before any conclusions are drawn.
A comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation at HFYC typically involves two to three appointments. The first session involves a clinical interview with parents to gather developmental history, educational background, and current concerns. The evaluation session with the child involves standardized testing across cognitive, academic, and processing domains and typically takes three to four hours. A feedback session is then scheduled to review findings with the family, explain the diagnosis, answer questions, and discuss next steps. We do not rush this process — the evaluation is the foundation of everything that follows.