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The difficulties faced by children in various school grades are the subject of frequent visits to the developmental clinic. But how early can they be diagnosed? Is there a benefit from their early diagnosis? What are the appropriate ways to deal with them? In the following article you will find all the answers to these questions.

Let’s start with some basic definitions:

1. What are the difficulties that may lead a child to a diagnostic check-up at the developmental clinic?

Symptoms such as increased mobility, difficulty adapting to a group activity, difficulty maintaining attention are some symptoms that require attention. In addition, by the age when the child enters the preschool school grade, he must have the ability to produce complex speech, grammatically correct in most cases, that is understandable to third parties, without particular articulatory errors. He/She should be able to know the rules of the group and manage his/her behavior and emotions in case of cancellation.

2. Is my child ready to attend first grade?

The school readiness assessment can be done with a simple screening test with a diagnostic tool that is available to the general pediatrician. As soon as there are the first suspicions of a lack of school readiness, a referral should be made to the developmental clinic for further testing and a more detailed examination.

3. What skills should a child who will attend first grade have?

He/She should have sufficiently developed speech, descriptive skills, fluency in handwriting and the ability to perceive that words begin with phonemes that correspond to letters. He/She should also have the skills to adapt to physical activities and emotional maturity to control his/her emotions.

4. What could be signs of a learning disability in the first grade?

Difficulty copying text, difficulty reading simple words, and then simple sentences, as well as difficulty writing text from dictation are some early warning signs. In addition, a child may have difficulty with mathematical skills: difficulty automating addition and subtraction to ten and difficulty distinguishing mathematical quantities, recognizing shapes and choosing how to solve simple mathematical problems.

5. What are the signs of a learning disability in higher grades of elementary school?

Such difficulties may include difficulty in easily reading a text and assimilating the content so that he can answer simple questions. Difficulty writing text from dictation, replacing grammatical symbols with others, mirroring. It is also important to recognize difficulties in writing, with non-observance of distances between words, non-observance of case-insensitive writing and non-observance of punctuation marks. Children may also have difficulties in short-term auditory memory, which is reflected in the learning of texts that require memorization, or learning multiplication.

6. How can learning difficulties be addressed?

Depending on the disorder that will be identified, occupational therapy and speech therapy intervention may be needed if the difficulties are detected quite early, or special learning intervention. Finally, an important part of the program may be psychotherapeutic intervention and parental counseling. Early diagnosis of difficulties in kindergarten prevents the appearance of specific learning difficulties at an older age and strengthens the child’s self-confidence.

Recognizing the important role of prevention and early diagnosis, and on the occasion of the start of the registration period for the new school year, the Athens Pediatric Center & the Inter-Balkan Medical Center of Thessaloniki, of the Athens Medical Group, are offering comprehensive “Back to school” preventive examination packages at preferential prices until October 31, 2024.