Thank you for this information. I had not heard it before. Never too late to learn something new. Like I said, it was never brought up when I was teaching and we certainly had a lot of 'experts' diagnosing children's learning disabilities. I am very aware of hypothyroidism as I have a mild case of it myself which I developed as an adult. That said, Marie may never know what caused her learning disabilities as many are near impossible to diagnose.On the contrary, there are plenty of scholarly articles referring to cognitive impairment in subclinical (no recognisable clinical findings) thyroid disease in children. Symptoms include:
What are the symptoms of hypothyroidism in a child?
The signs in children are different from those in adults. The most common sign in children is slowed or delayed growth. This may occur years before other signs occur. Other signs can occur a bit differently in each child and can vary by age.
Signs in younger children (juvenile hypothyroidism) can include:
Signs in older children and teens (adolescent hypothyroidism) can include:
- Slow growth that may cause short limbs
- Delayed tooth development
- Impaired school performance
- Lack of energy
- Inactivity
- Slow bowel movements (constipation)
- Dry skin
- Feeling cold
View attachment 571981
- Slow growth
- Delayed puberty
- Hoarse voice
- Slow speech
- Droopy eyelids
- Puffy and swollen face
- Brittle hair, hair loss
- Dry skin
- Slow pulse
- Weight gain
- Impaired school performance
- Lack of energy
- Inactivity
- Slow bowel movements (constipation)
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I agree. I think there is more to FRK's challenges than dyslexia, which does not reflect upon her intellectual capacity. As we all know, some very bright people are dyslexic. I think her IQ is probably fairly low and she does seem to struggle to process information. I suspect her literacy and numeracy difficulties are part of this. There are times when she has quite a vacant look about her and you can see the "slow child" that she herself describes.