Learners can frustrate their parents and teachers by not achieving to their potential.  These students can give up too easily when tasks are difficult or just refuse to try.  This behavior is often driven by the child's own experiences with real failure.  Repeated failure, particularly in the case of a child with a learning disability, discourages the child and he/she starts to believe that failure is inevitable, therefore the attitude of "What's the point?"  Even when a task is well within a child's ability to accomplish, the nagging voice in his/her head repeats, "you're not smart enough!" or "You'll never get this!" 

This nagging voice can be silenced, but it takes a good deal of work, the kind of work students and educational therapists engage in every day.  The turned-off child can be re-activated.  Of critical importance is the development of a warm, trusting relationship among the learner, therapist and family.  Negative self-talk can be gradually turned to positive self-validation, "You can do this, if you give it a little more effort!"