Preparing Your Teen with a Learning Disability for Life After High School
As a parent of a teen with a learning disability, the future can feel uncertain. You may wonder if your child will ever gain the independence and skills they need to succeed in life and work after high school. It’s a valid concern. Teens with learning disabilities often face challenges that extend beyond the classroom, affecting their ability to manage tasks, meet expectations, and thrive in real-world settings. But there is hope. With the right interventions and a focus on building key skills now, your teen can develop the tools they need to navigate adulthood more confidently.
Why High School Is a Critical Time for Skill-Building
High school is not just about academics—it’s about preparing teens for the responsibilities and independence of adult life. While school-based accommodations (like extra time on tests or modified assignments) can be helpful in the short term, they don’t equip teens with the skills they’ll need outside of the classroom.
Relying on accommodations can sometimes hinder the development of essential skills, leaving teens less prepared for the demands of adulthood.
Instead, teens should be focusing on building core cognitive and life skills now, while they have support from both home and school. Developing these skills can help set the stage for greater independence and success in the workforce.
Skills to Focus On:
- Executive Functioning Skills. Executive functioning skills—such as planning, time management, problem-solving, and self-regulation—are the foundation for success in both academic and everyday life. Teens need to learn how to prioritize tasks, manage their schedules, set goals, and follow through. These are the skills that help them juggle responsibilities like schoolwork, jobs, and eventually adult tasks like managing finances or maintaining a job.
- Working Memory and Attention. Many teens with learning disabilities struggle with attention and working memory, making it difficult to focus on tasks or retain information over time. Improving these skills can lead to better performance in school and help with tasks that require concentration and multitasking, such as learning new job skills or handling multiple responsibilities.
- Social Skills and Emotional Regulation. Navigating the complexities of social interactions is another area where teens with learning disabilities often struggle. Building strong social skills can help them in personal relationships, as well as in professional settings. Emotional regulation and resilience, the ability to manage frustration and setbacks, is equally important. Teens who can bounce back from challenges are better equipped to handle the inevitable difficulties of adulthood.
The Role of Brain Training in Preparing for the Future
So, how can you help your teen with a learning disability build these vital skills? Cognitive training, or brain training, offers a targeted approach to build learning skills that may be weak. Unlike accommodations, which work around the areas where your teen may struggle, brain training strengthens the underlying cognitive skills that are often weak in individuals with learning disabilities, specifically in areas like:
- Executive Functioning: Executive functioning skills rely on a strong foundation of cognitive skills. For example, you can’t plan or prioritize tasks if you don’t have strong logic skills. You can’t check for errors while you work if your processing speed is slow. Read more about how these areas overlap here >>
- Attention and Working Memory: By strengthening attention and working memory, brain training helps teens stay focused and retain more information, both of which are crucial for academic and workplace success.
- Processing Speed: Faster cognitive processing can lead to quicker decision-making and more efficient problem-solving, helping teens keep pace with the demands of adult life.
- Emotional Resilience: The cognitive gains from brain training often extend into better confidence for our clients.* Teens become better equipped to manage stress and frustration, which is key to handling the ups and downs of adulthood.
These improvements aren’t just about surviving school—they translate into real-world benefits like being able to maintain focus in a job, remembering and applying instructions, managing time effectively, and staying organized in daily tasks.
Why Accommodations Aren’t Enough in the Long Run
While school accommodations such as extended test time or modified assignments can help your teen manage academic pressures, they don’t build the skills needed to thrive after graduation. In the real world, there are no extended deadlines, simplified tasks, or notes to rely on. Jobs, relationships, and adult responsibilities all require strong cognitive abilities and independence.
The long-term reliance on accommodations can create a false sense of security. While they allow teens to “get by” in school, they don’t push them to strengthen their cognitive skills. Over time, this can leave them struggling to keep up with peers who have developed these essential life skills. Brain training offers a proactive solution by building the very skills that accommodations bypass.
Setting Your Teen with a Learning Disability up for Success in Life
For teens with learning disabilities, the path to independence and success can feel daunting—but it’s not impossible. The high school years provide a crucial window for strengthening cognitive skills and building the resilience needed for adult life.
By focusing on long-term skill-building rather than short-term fixes, you can help your teen not just survive—but thrive—as they move into adulthood.
Take the Next Step
If you’re concerned about your teen’s future, now is the time to explore how brain training can help. Contact LearningRx to learn more about how our programs can address the root causes of learning struggles and prepare your teen for a successful, independent future.
*Results based on surveys and studies of past clients. Individual outcomes may vary.
