Learning Disabilities?

Every morning we have been learning a new cursive letter (something which I guess most of us learned in third grade, although I certainly don't remember when I learned it). The kids actually really enjoy learning cursive - I think it makes them feel grown up! And they are actually very good at it.

Except that I have one student, AM, who simply doesn't get it. I use worksheets that show you the letters piece by piece, where to start and then where to go next and I demonstrate several times in class. But AM has a very hard time doing the letters in the right order, often reversing or inerting the tails and loops and seeming very confused. For a while I wasn't sure if her continuous lifting of her pencil was an attention-seeking behavior, but now I'm pretty sure it's a spacial relationship thing and maybe a dislexia thing? I also wonder if it could be connected to math because she has trouble with basic addition and subtraction, sometimes skipping numbers or inverting relationships. But it doesn't really seem like dislexia because she doesn't reverse her letters - it's slightly different.

Anyway, the question this raises for me is what can I do to help her! We spend quite a lot of time going over the cursive letters in class together (tracing my outlines) but sometimes I wonder if there's any point in frustrating her with something as superfluous as cursive - I mean who cares if she picks up her pencil and makes her a's with a full circle instead of a half circle, they still look pretty much the same.

It also makes me wonder what kind of training in learning disabilities I would have recieved if I had attended teacher's college. Maybe cursive isn't important, but could this same thing be related to her difficulties in math? Is there some way I could help her perceive it differently rather than through sight? Will she simply grow out of it? And how much else don't we understand about the human brain and children's development - what other behaviors could be related to perception rather than choice (I'm thinking about my student with possible autism)?