Has anyone given their child a brain scan for
an undiagnosed learning disability? What I mean
is we have an 8 year old boy finishing up the 2nd
grade. He has been considered L.D. since he was 4
which to us is too much of a broad term. Our son
has a great personality. Socially, he is very
caring and thoughtful of others. He loves to make new friends. However, he has extreme difficulty in recalling words, he barely reads at a kindergarten level. He definately is speech delayed. He has been classified since he was 4 but we seem to be moving at such a slow pace in the public school system that we thought a brain scan might shed some light on his disability. Any suggestions?

That would be interesting depending on what LDs your child has. Those would be brain scans i would truly love to see. As an archaeologist i love looking at various scans both of modern people and people who croaked several million years ago.

But brain scanning for LDs, is interesting not all LDs show up in scans. For some, there is absolutely no legitimate evidence of anything concrete and organic that has yet been presented. Therefore, in such a case, no one will be able to see anything in such a brain scan. Still it might be worth while to do even then as the repetoire of brain scans and other evidence that is collected for use in finding whatever it is (unless ofcourse it really is nothing but a reflection of a poor home life or something which in some cases is really the ld rather than any legitimate ld.) So the more information that can be gathered, the more will be learned and the more there is to analyze in a search to find these things or to disprove them.

But, times are also very hard. If i were you, what i would do is i would first look into the varieties of LDs your child has. Ask the experts what they should see in the scan *exactly*. And if they say "well we don't know that it can be seen in a brain scan for certain....." Say to them you will get back to them and do your own research on the matter of weather or not it can be viewed in a scan. If not, in tough times paying for something like this when nothing can even be seen that is known to for a fact legitimize an LD.... Maybe then now isn't the time? it depends i suppose on what you think is the best course of action. But have the doctors show you on a picture of a brain, (maybe one in a medical text book or something) where and what they expect to see in relation to your child's LD diagnosies is the only advice i have.

I hope you do it though, because all the information that can be gathered that speaks to the legitimacy of various lds is really interesting... Torturing childrne making them stare at ink blots in some clinical environment that makes them nervois, seems a bit less relevant on a scientific level.

Best of luck making your decision!

I haven't heard of any brain scans for LDs, however, it might be a good idea to get him tested by a Neuropsychologist to get a more specific handle on where his learning breakdowns are so that you can use more targetted therapies and strategie to help him.