PURPOSE: to check articles regarding learning difficulties, with the specific objectives of classifying the type of article as well as analyzing the approach and nomenclature that the authors used in the identification of learning problems in publications from 2001 to 2005 - indexed on LILACS. METHODS: survey of articles taking into consideration the following key words: learning difficulty, learning disability, reading and/or writing difficulty, dyslexia, dysortography and dysgraphy. RESULTS: original article was the most published, followed by case study. The main nomenclature that the authors used were "learning disability" or "learning difficulty", and the most cited approach was the one addressing phonological awareness. We observed 207 articles on language, 22 of these articles referred to the subject of the present study. CONCLUSION: the studies published on the field of language are scarce, especially regarding subjects related to learning difficulties. Perhaps this scarcity can be explained by a lack of consensus among authors, leading to both diagnostic as well as therapeutic difficulties.
Learning Disorders; Language; Reading; Handwriting; Dyslexia
