text: how are learning disabilities, menatal retardation, and emotional disabilities the same/different?   they are all the same in that the cause challenges to the natural learning process.  the difference is how they cause those challenges:  learning disabilities involve how a person processes their sensory information, their memory retrieval, and applies pattern recognition. a person with ld usually has average or higher intelligence, and there's a difference in brain wiring that interferes with academic learning. ld people do tend to have something else that they are very good at (art, sports, drama, music, etc.).  mental retardation means the person does not learn very quickly, and can only handle small chunks of information at any one time. a person with mr needs skills broken down into smaller steps, and each step repeated many times, in order to learn it.  emotional/behavioral disabilities means the person has neurochemical imbalances in their brain causing long-term anxiety, depression, hallucinations, obsessive/compulsive behaviors, etc. most people take for granted that you act the way you feel, because most people only feel anxious, depressed, etc. for a reason (something has happened to cause the feeling). most people generally feel happy, friendly, positive, motivated, etc. however, someone with an e/bd is punished for acting they way they feel, socially, because the anxiety, depression, or whatever is severe and constant. there is usually no obvious environmental trigger for it (e.g. a family member died, there's a major presentation due, or whatever). and no, they can't "snap out of it." their body/central nervous system is doing it to them.  with a mood disorder, doing school work is very difficult because it is hard to concentrate when you're not feeling content, happy, motivated, etc. a person with e/bd can be externalized (posing a violent risk to him/herself and others due to showing the mood issues externally), or internallized (getting "eaten up" inside by the pain of the mood disorder and "shutting down"). either way, learning won't be taking place effectively.