ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of some of the special needs that may be encountered in classrooms and considers their underlying causes. It deals with some of the manifestations of special needs in an attempt to maximise the learning of those children who are affected. There are many other congenital conditions that can adversely affect a child's all-round development and lead to difficulties with learning, but many of them are exceedingly rare. Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that presents children and adults alike with problems, in a variety of combinations, concerning reading, writing, spelling, visual and auditory perception, organisational skills and memory. Specific language impairment (SLI) covers a range of difficulties associated with learning and using language. Most learning difficulties have their roots in either inherited conditions or genetic faults, problems at or around birth or later injury, abuse or other environmental factors. Multisensory teaching aims to involve the different senses in the process of learning.
