Struggling to Learn Doesn’t Mean You’re Not Intelligent
When academic performance doesn’t reflect effort or potential, it can quietly wear away at confidence. Whether it’s a child who dreads reading aloud, a teen who avoids math homework, or an adult carrying the weight of unspoken school struggles — learning difficulties often hide behind silence, shame, or self-doubt.
At MapleTree Psychotherapy Center in Dubai, we offer comprehensive assessments for learning disabilities with sensitivity and respect. We focus not only on where the difficulty lies — but on how it’s felt, internalized, and lived through.
What We Explore Through Learning & Academic Assessments
These assessments aren’t about pointing out deficits. They’re about understanding how someone’s brain processes, stores, and works with information.
We explore:
- Signs of dyslexia, dyscalculia, or other processing-based learning difficulties
- Reading, writing, or math challenges that don’t improve with standard support
- Working memory, processing speed, and executive function capacities
- The emotional toll of repeated academic frustration or comparison
- Avoidance behaviors, test anxiety, or school refusal
- Patterns of effort, motivation, and self-worth in educational contexts
In a competitive and often high-pressure academic environment like Dubai, these struggles can easily be overlooked or misunderstood. Our role is to slow down, notice, and listen — carefully.
Our Assessment Approach
Every assessment begins with empathy, and unfolds at a pace that honors the individual.
Our approach includes:
- Developmental history gathering, including family, school, and emotional background
- Standardized cognitive and achievement testing, such as the WIAT, WISC, WAIS and other tools
- Collaborative school engagement, when needed, to support learning accommodations or recommendations
- Multicultural considerations, especially in Dubai’s diverse school systems
- Feedback sessions with families, focused on clarity, next steps, and emotional support — not blame
We don’t just assess for learning challenges — we assess for resilience, adaptation, and the parts of a learner that have worked so hard to keep up.
Who These Assessments Support
We support:
- Adolescents with ongoing academic struggles that are not explained by effort or behavior
- Students with inconsistent performance across subjects or unexplained resistance to learning
- Parents seeking clarity on how to better support their child — without defaulting to discipline or pressure
- Adults who have long suspected undiagnosed learning challenges affecting their confidence or career
- International families in Dubai navigating new educational systems or language transitions
Services are be provided in English. Translation services may be arranged as per need and availability.
There’s Strength in Understanding How You Learn
Academic struggles are not a reflection of intelligence — but they can deeply shape self-image.
We offer a path toward clarity, not criticism — and support the whole learner.
