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Impact on Learning
OCD has a major impact on learning as can be seen by the following statistics:
- 48% of OCD students need remedial help
- 40% of OCD students are in special classes
- 7% of OCD students repeat a grade
© James F. Leckman, M.D. & Barbara J. Coffey, M.D., 1994
Effects on Seven Areas of Learning
Oral Expression
- Inefficient communication
- Trouble organizing narrative
- Word retrieval problems
- Circumlocution
- Nonspecific word usage
- Deficient verbal pragmatic strategies
- Prosody - too fast or too slow
- Failure to consider needs of listener
- Difficulty expressing emotions appropriately
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Listening Comprehension
- Verbal inattention
- Difficulty focusing on verbal detail
- Difficulty focusing on prolonged listening activities
- Fatigue and distractibility in highly verbal settings
- Difficulty following directions
- Need for repetition of verbal instructions
- Auditory imperception
- Auditory processing deficits
- Problems detecting pragmatic language cues
- Difficulty interpreting figurative language
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Basic Reading Skills
- Attentional problems
- Impulsivity
- Inattention to detail
- Distractibility during reading activity
- Impersistence
- Poor self-monitoring
- Delayed acquisition of decoding/sound blending skills
- Tracking problems
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Reading Comprehension
- Impulsivity
- Impersistence
- Inattention to relevant details
- Inefficient memory strategies
- Sequential processing deficits
- Difficulty with inferential comprehension
- Difficulty comprehending lengthy passages
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Written Expression
- Language domain
- Difficulty initiating ideas
- Difficulty limiting topic
- Disorganization and lack of planning
- Poor self-monitoring - many careless errors
- Inability to edit written production
- Memory domain (Difficulty handling complex memory demands)
- Poor recall and maintenance of ideas
- Difficulty remembering appearance of letters/words
- Difficulty making writing legible
- Problems retrieving specific vocabulary words
- Difficulty remembering mechanics (capitalization, punctuation, grammar)
- Difficulty spelling correctly
- Graphomotor/handwriting domain (90% have handwriting
problems)
- Poor fine motor skills
- Handwriting not an integrated skill
- Impulsivity - rapid, unplanned writing
- Excessively slow writing
- Impersistence when writing several paragraphs
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This is a sample of the impact
of OCD on handwriting. Note the rewritings
and enlarged period. Frequent erasures are common
as are holes in the paper due to obsessive erasing
to make the writing look perfect. (
Teaching the Tiger, pg. 86)
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Math Calculation
- Poor mastery of math facts
- Poor active working memory
- Inattention to details
- Impulsivity
- Sequencing problems
- Difficulty with multi-step calculation
- Difficulty following instructions
- Poor spatial utilization
- Poor self-monitoring
- Graphomotor impairment
- Tics distract from attending to details
- Perseverating on numbers and symbols
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Math Reasoning
- Difficulty handling abstract language
- Inattention to relevant details
- Sequencing processing deficits
- Impaired executive functioning
- Inefficient memory strategies
- Tracking problems
- Impulsivity
- Impersistence
- Unable to manipulate language
- Motor tic interference
- Stuck
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Copyright, Marilyn P. Dornbush, Ph.D.,
Sheryl K. Pruitt, M.Ed., 1992
(Teaching the Tiger, pp. 67-102)
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Disabilities 
