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Young adults with ADHD anxiety and learning disabilities often experience varying degrees of impairment, so it can sometimes be difficult to diagnose. For girls, ADHD usually translates to internalized anxiety, depression and social withdrawal. For boys, ADHD is displayed more outwardly, through aggression, obstinacy or disruptive behavior. Perhaps this is why it appears that boys are three times more likely to be diagnosed as special needs adults, as it’s more difficult to hide.

A 2005 study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders found that young adults with ADHD had a more difficult time adjusting to college academically, socially and emotionally, when compared to their non-ADHD peers. Researchers found that nearly all the students with ADHD anxiety had never been previously diagnosed or received any prior treatment. They also concluded that universities need better support services like specialized counseling programs and labs for reading difficulties to help these students. Despite the difficulties students faced, researchers added that the potential to succeed was there.

Ricki Linksman, Director of the National Reading Diagnostics Institute in Illinois, says that young adults diagnosed with ADHD anxiety are not completely incurable. She explains, “Once they are given the opportunity to learn through the proper methods, their ADHD-like behavior often disappears.” Most people with ADHD have a kinesthetic learning style. This means that they absorb information through more direct, active methods. It may seem agonizing to take notes or sit through a long lecture, but they grasp new information quickly and easily through field trips, skits, experiments, songs, model building and group work.

Young adults with ADHD can be successful at just about any type of career if it meets their interests. It’s just important that they avoid some ADHD anxiety “workplace traps.” For instance, working adults with ADHD often get easily distracted. Therefore, it’s wise that they seek jobs with flex-time, desks facing away from traffic or a varied work day. To minimize internal distractions, they can keep lists, check off tasks and work on one particular task for brief periods of time before switching to other tasks. They may also experience hyperactivity, so they should actively take notes at meetings, plan productive days, exercise during their lunch breaks and find a job where they can spend a lot of time moving about. Lastly, to overcome a poor memory, ADHD adults should subscribe to the mantra “do it now or write it down,” set cell phone reminders, keep a calendar and live with a detailed agenda nearby at all times.

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Adult learning theory is a fairly new concept that came about in the nineties as more and more adults began requiring additional schooling or training adult learning. Certain changes in society increased the need for teachers trained in teaching adults. For instance, working adults may suddenly need to take computer courses to adapt to a changing workplace. With the increased job competitiveness and importance of seeking higher education, a number of high school drop-outs have decided to return to school to complete their GEDs or possibly seek college courses for the first time. Immigrants may need to take English-as-a-Second-Language courses to advance their careers and become more integrated into a new society. For all these reasons, it is important that instructors know how to communicate with this emerging class of pupils.

The first adult learning styles writings were published by adult learning theory pioneer David Kolb in 1984. He argued that there are four distinct learning styles: Diverging, Assimilating, Converging and Accommodating and that there are also four phases for each style, which are Concrete Experience, Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualization and Active Experimentation. “Divergers” are sensitive and emotional, prefer to watch rather than do, enjoy brainstorming and information gathering, and are receptive to feedback. “Convergers” love technical tasks and problem solving, can easily apply practical uses for theories, are less interested in social-personal issues, and like simulations or new ideas. “Assimilators” need clear explanations and logical reasoning, they’re good at organizing data, they are less focused on people and more interested in abstract concepts, and they like readings and analytical models to further their understanding. Lastly, “Accommodators” are hands-on and intuitive, they like to use other people’s experiences, they love new challenges and experiences, they like working in teams and they prefer to work in the field. Once new information has been absorbed, adults will then make observations based on their experiences, create concepts and actively test these concepts in the real world.

Many subsequent theories define adult learning theory further by attempting to classify personality types. For instance, Carl Jung spoke about “introverts” and “extroverts,” which reveals how a person is comfortable adapting to the world. The Myers-Briggs Personality Test examines different personality types like ENFP, INTJ, etc. Researchers Honey & Mumford talk about “activists,” “pragmatists,” “theorists” and “reflectors.” Lastly, Howard Gardner talks about how adults learn faster by different methods — whether it’s by sight, sound, touch, spatial reasoning or interpersonal modes. This theory is called “Multiple Intelligences Theory,” which has recently helped numerous adults achieve levels of competency they never thought possible.

Adult learning theory takes into account that different people learn most effectively by different methods. For instance, a visual-spatial learning student can look at a map and remember all the geographic information on it. By contrast, a verbal learning student would need to read a book describing where things are located and providing some context for the locations to grasp the concepts. Musical learners often use mnemonic devices to remember data, whereas logical learners would use a mathematical formula or pattern to recall. Researchers have found that taking these differences into consideration and modifying teaching styles has had tremendous success in treating ADHD in adults and individuals with perceived adult learning disabilities.

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In the past, adult learning disabilities were rarely detected. Even if they were, no remedial reading programs were available to help struggling students. Many seniors in their sixties and seventies have lived lives full of frustration, low self-esteem and hardship. They can’t write shopping lists or greeting cards, they can’t read books or signs, and they can’t reach their full potentials. Older adults may decide that “enough is enough” and opt to return back to school to get this monkey off their back once and for all.

Teaching adults can be challenging at times. Naturally, as we age, we experience changes in vision. We may no longer be able to focus on close objects, deal with the glare of a computer screen for long periods of time, read smaller 18-point font size, see colors as they actually are or see around physical barriers like tables. To teach adults, instructors should take all of these factors into consideration to reduce stress on their pupils. Hearing impairment is another challenge for adults of an older age. Some may learn to do some lip reading, but it’s always best if a loud voice can be used or have a clear microphone installed. Teachers should ensure a quiet setting with limited background noise, have all cell phones turned off and be careful not to distort their faces while speaking.

Many older adults in basic education courses also suffer with a learning disability. For these students, it’s extremely important that instructors take different adult learning styles into consideration and approach the classroom with multiple teaching modes. Some students prefer visual learning (with charts, videos, diagrams and illustrations), while others prefer auditory (with lectures, music, group discussions and tapes), while others yet prefer kinesthetic learning (with hands-on activities, field trips, role playing and experiments). It’s important that instructors keep the learning disabled students motivated by sharing helpful techniques, building on the students’ strengths, giving positive reinforcement and showing how short-term goals connect with long-term goals.

Understanding how older adults learn and retain information is crucial. For instance, older students learn best through practice and rehearsing new information. It helps if they can practice while the teaching is going on to receive constructive instructor feedback as well. Students should have guides like cue cards or handouts while going through their adult learning training, so they don’t feel lost or confused. Many seniors opt to take further education for the social aspect as well. They like meeting and interacting with others, so group exercises would be a good way to instruct older pupils.

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It’s believed that up to 10% of Americans may have undiagnosed learning disabilities they’ve carried into adulthood. The tragedy is not only that these individuals have gone through half their lives feeling frustrated and confused, but that they now carry the emotional scars too. Many adults with dyslexia and other learning disabilities have very self confidence, suffer from anxiety and experience bouts of depression. Sometimes the impact of something as basic as reading difficulties can transform into a diagnosable mental disorder, while other times it’s manifested as stress.

The challenge of coping with learning disabilities as an adult is enormous. Today, so much emphasis is placed on completing college and special needs adults are expected to fit into this mold, even when other options like vocational skills training may be more in-sync with their adult learning styles. According to the National Longitudinal Transition Study, the results are bleak, as 35% of children with learning disabilities drop out of high school (which is twice the rate for students without learning disabilities). Only 2% of high school graduates with learning disabilities transition to a four-year college.

Despite the difficulty of arriving at adulthood with a learning disability, some achieve college degrees and transition into working adults. The successful students are generally self-motivated and seek out campus leadership positions, work study jobs, internships and summer employment opportunities. They are observant at work, watching how others communicate, interact and function. They ask questions, know what is expected of them and stay organized with cell phone reminders, calendars, lists and agendas. On the job, successful special needs adults know that certain accommodations will help them, such as written instructions, tape recorders, demonstrations, diagrams, extended deadlines, a clean working space, computer spell-check and color-coded files. They tap into their support network of family and friends as needed and visit websites like the Job Accommodation Network (www.jan.wvu.edu), Peterson’s Internships (www.petersons.com), the National Rehabilitation Information Center (www.naric.com) and the Equal Opportunity Commission (www.eeoc.gov).

There are many options for post-secondary-education as disabled individuals reach adulthood. Some go onto two or four-year college programs, vocational training or they seek out internships. For special needs adults who never graduated high school, there are continuing education programs to help them prepare for a GED test or improve academic skills in reading, writing, math and critical thinking. These adult education courses can be taken at county boards of education, colleges, community centers or private companies. Since there are no admission requirements and minimal (if any) fees, many adults with dyslexia or other disabilities feel most comfortable taking this first step.

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The root cause of an adult learning disability/dyslexia stems in the brain, where the portions that affect reading are weakened. Currently, the only way to cope with the defect is to take a dyslexia test, get a diagnosis and learn about different teaching and learning methods to make life easier. Since the completion of the human genome project, researchers have also identified defects in 4 to 10 genes that lead to the faulty wiring. Yale researchers say early intervention is the key to helping children stay ahead in school, but all is not lost for the adults with dyslexia either. Job training centers and learning centers have been fairly successful in helping adults with disabilities lead normal lives. So far no cures have been proposed, but this recent genetic discovery may lead to better screening processes and advances in the future.

Some of the current tests for dyslexia include the Beery Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration, Bender Gestalt Test of Visual Motor Perception, Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test, Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (KABC), Kaufman Tests of Educational Achievement (KTEA), Motor-Free Visual Perception Test, Peabody Individual Achievement Tests (PIAT), Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language (TACL), Test of Auditory Perception (TAPS), Test of Visual Perception (TVPS), Visual Aural Digit Span Test (VADS), Wechsler Individual Achievement Tests (WIAT, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III) and the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery test. To gather the full picture, doctors and psychologists usually try as many of these tests as they can to assess adult learning disabilities. This is called a “multi-approach” to diagnosis. In addition to these psychoanalytical tests, medical doctors can now perform brain scans using MRI and PET imaging to detect brain anomalies.

Sometimes an adult dyslexia test may reveal other adult learning disabilities. Nonverbal learning disabilities are classified under a different neurological disorder, which shows problems with organization, evaluating and visual-spatial processing. With an auditory or visual processing disorder, a person may see or hear perfectly fine but have a difficult time deciphering. Dysgraphia is a writing disability where a person may be unable to write in cursive, form certain letters or include proper spacing. With dyscalculia, a person may be unable to solve the simplest mathematical problems or understand the most basic math concepts. ADHD anxiety may make a person feel distracted, excitable and unable to concentrate long enough to understand or store information properly.

A dyslexia test is the first step toward improving one’s life. Once the diagnosis has been made, a person can learn more about his or her particular learning style. The worst fallacy perpetuated by schooling is that there are “smart kids” and “stupid kids,” who later grow into “smart adults” and “stupid adults.” In reality, we learn that our brains are simply different. We can’t all learn by one standardized method. Yes, some people can remember something simply by listening to it once or reading it once; but other people may need more reinforcement — they read it, they hear it, they write it, they discuss it and then they remember it. Reading difficulties can really inhibit a person’s life, since there are so many times we must read — whether it is in a restaurant, on the job or at home. Yet as people understand more about their personal learning styles, they can begin to realize their full potential.

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Perhaps one of the problems with the dyslexia adult learning disability is that educational programs often teach to the majority, ignoring different child and adult learning styles. Dyslexic people are often very bright, but are branded as “slow learners” because they are restless, distractible and confused. Later in life, people are fearful of taking an adult dyslexia test because they don’t want people to judge them. However, understanding how one’s brain is wired and which techniques can help a person overcome a roadblock can be extremely beneficial.

A test for adult dyslexia can be helpful to clarify one’s condition. Often times, a person with dyslexia signs gets misdiagnosed. Right off the bat, many individuals are seen as “underachievers” who simply don’t care about achieving quality marks in school or getting ahead in life. These stigmas and stereotypes can prevent a person from rising above the labels. Kids are often diagnosed with ADHD anxiety because they’re perceived to be intelligent but fidgety and under-performing. Being put on Ritalin is no way to overcome basic reading difficulties. Others with dyslexia are even viewed as having adults Asperger syndrome, depression or even mild mental retardation because they appear “different” from others. With a proper diagnosis, individuals can expect more reasonable goals and achieve more than ever before.

There are two primary places to find an adult dyslexia test; either through a psychologist or online. Chartered psychologists may own a practice or operate through a local college. College psychologists are generally skeptical of signs of dyslexia and prefer to send disabled adults to their one-size-fits-all reading and writing centers instead. Private practice psychologists are usually much better with their assessments and reporting, although they are also more expensive. Online dyslexia tests may seem expensive, but not compared to an office visit. Once the test is finished, the results will be determined and individual will then receive a diagnosis and be informed about the different adult learning styles.

A wide range of achievement tests are often given to diagnose adult learning disabilities. The adult dyslexia test will ask an individual to comprehend ideas and information within sentences, spell, repeat poly-syllabic words, speed read for one minute, recite back a numerical sequence, decipher the letter “b” from “d,” phonetically spell out words, subtract numbers and use the right hand to point to the left foot. While these may not sound like particularly challenging tasks, adults with dyslexia often stumble in these areas. However, with specialized educational programs, they can learn to overcome faulty neural pathways.

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Dyslexia screening can be done in a school setting, a clinical setting or a community setting. Schools are generally hesitant to diagnose individuals with adult learning disabilities because they fear the stigmas associated with disabled adults. After all, they want to appear as though “all the students are achieving.” Most people seek out psychologists or psychologists, as expensive as they may be, since these people greatly understand the plight of the learning disabled. Often one can find a free dyslexia test online, but they are then prompted to pay for the results of that test. Hopefully, in the near future, there will be one standard test for students to take, so a diagnosis can be made and treatment can be pursued.

In “Advances in early years screening for dyslexia in the United Kingdom” (2007), researchers discuss the dyslexia early screening test (DEST) and the cognitive profiling system (CoPS 1), which are both approved for use in the United States as well. By administering these dyslexia screening tests early, it’s believed that at-risk students can be identified before they even fail, thereby decreasing the possibility that these kids will develop emotional, behavioral and motivational issues. A number of educators who teach adults and children with learning disabilities say these two tests are the best options we have today, as long as they’re administered.

“Dyslexia is not a matter of low intelligence. It is mainly caused genetically, as twin-studies have shown,” says Arndt Wilcke, scientist at Leipzig, Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology. He says that 1 in 4 German school children suffer with dyslexia signs and that they’re “trying to find out which genes cause the disease.” They propose that embryonic nerve cells may not migrate to the right places during development, thereby causing the confusion. Currently, researchers in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the US are racing to see who will first identify those specific genes that are associated with reading difficulties.

Actor Henry Winkler is one of the most active advocates of dyslexia screening and talks about his experience with his childhood and adult learning disability. “It’s frustrating,” he admits. “It is sad, because you’re watching everybody else get stuff with ease. You keep wondering, ‘Why, no matter how hard I study, can’t I get this?’ Like a poisonous worm, it eats away at the child’s self-image.” He adds that his parents never understood his reading difficulties and thought that they could just ground him or leave him in his room and he’d one day magically improve. Later in life, he was diagnosed with adult dyslexia and he found that it was the dyslexia that pushed him forward to succeed. Winkler adds, “Children with a learning challenge have great gifts inside them. They need to be encouraged to dig them out and give them to the world. It’s shocking what nuggets of human gold there are to mine.”

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Adult dyslexia can be difficult to diagnose because there are varying degrees of severity. Some people are exceedingly intelligent and possess perfectly fine vision and speech, but they have trouble reading or writing at times. Others may have a more serious adult learning disability, which prevents them from being able to function in every day life without substantial help. Many people are diagnosed as children, but often the dyslexia signs are so subtle that people make it to adulthood without ever fully understanding the problem. It seems that treatment is just as obscure, with adult learning centers and different teaching methods being the best tactics.

Symptoms of dyslexia in adults include the inability to recognize written words and letters, a low reading ability, problems understanding auditory words, difficulty understanding rapid commands and difficulty remembering a sequence. Often times, adults will encounter reversals of letters (like seeing a “b” as a “d”) or reversals of words (”saw” instead of “was”). Sometimes adults with dyslexia have a hard time recognizing the spaces between words and they have a hard time sounding out unfamiliar words. Rhyming words, syllable counting, remembering words, recalling places, distinguishing different sounds, associating words with the wrong meanings, keeping time and organizing are some of the problems that dyslexic male and female adults may encounter on a regular basis.

To determine if a person has adult dyslexia, doctors usually evaluate family medical history and perform a series of different tests. They may perform vision, hearing and neurological tests to rule out some other possible disorders. Psychological assessments are done to see if depression, ADHD anxiety or other obstacles are inhibiting one’s ability to process information. Educational evaluations can determine the level of reading difficulties. Most recently, doctors use neuroimaging techniques in dyslexia research — notably, the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET).

More than 40 million Americans suffer from adult dyslexia, which comprises 15% of the U.S. population. Another way of looking at the situation is that 1 in 7 Americans suffer from reading or learning disabilities. Some studies suggest that as many as 90% of all dyslexia sufferers do not even know they exhibit all of the dyslexia signs. Perhaps they know that they are behind in math, reading or spelling, but they don’t understand the root diagnosis.

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