Nonverbal Learning Disorders: What To Look For by Pamela B. Tanguay
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kategod ...@aol.com (Kate)
As you review the characteristics outlined within this article, please keep in mind that many of the characteristics listed under one heading may, and often do, impact the individual in many areas of their lives. The hallmark of those diagnosed with NLD appears to be their fear, and sometimes terror, of any novel situation.
Cognitive/Academic 1. Generally the individual??™s WISC VIQ is higher than their PIQ, but not in all cases - particularly during adolescence.
I am not sure what this means.
2. There is an excellent vocabulary and more than typical verbal expression, starting at a young age.
Not really, I don't think.
3. Exceptional rote memory skills are quite common, and may mask the disability in early education.
Yes.
4. There is excellent attention to detail, but the individual will likely miss the big picture.
Yes 5. The individual may be an early reader, OR may have early reading difficulties. However, in either case, there is generally difficulty with reading comprehension beginning in the upper elementary grades, especially for novel material.
I was a really late reader. I was a teenager.
6. Difficulties in math are common, especially in the areas of computation, word problems, and abstract applications.
Yes, Yes, Yes 7. Concept formation and abstract reasoning may be significantly impaired.
Yes 8. There is likely to be great difficulty generalizing information -
applying learned information to new situations.
Yes 9. Generally their strongest learning medium is simple/rote auditory - if they hear it, they will remember it.
Yes Physical 1. Physical awkwardness is quite common - they appear to lack coordination.
As a youngster, the individual does better in individual rather than team sports.
Yes 2. There is difficulty learning to ride a bicycle, catch and/or kick a ball, hop and/or skip.
No difficulty learning riding a bicycle. I have problems with catching things.
A little problem with kicking a ball. A small problem with skipping.
3. Physical difficulties may be more pronounced on the left side of body.
Maybe.
4. Fine motor skills may be impaired - handwriting may be poor and/or laborious.
Yes. When I really try I can write very neaty and my handwriting can be very beautiful.
5. Significant problems with spatial perception are quite common.
Yes Language/Communication 1. These individuals are very concrete and interpret information quite literally.
Yes 2. Normally, they do not process or benefit from nonverbal communication -
body language, facial expressions, tone of voice may be lost on them.
Yes 3. They are unable to intuit or read between the lines (impacting both conversation and reading comprehension).
Very little I can do this.
4. Generally, these individuals have poor social skills. They will most likely have trouble making and/or keeping friends.
I have fair social stills. I have problems in keeping a friend or a relationship going.
Emotional/Behavioral 1. In all likelihood, they will have tremendous difficulty adjusting to new situations, or changes to their routine.
Yes 2. These individuals generally appear to lack common sense, or "street smarts" - they can be incredibly na??ve.
Yes 3. Anxiety and/or depression are very common, especially during adolescence.
This problem may be quite severe.
Yes 4. Often these individuals suffer from low self-esteem.
Yes 5. It is quite common for them to be withdrawn, and they may actually become agoraphobic.
Yes 6. There is a higher than normal incidence of suicide within the NLD population.
No. Sometimes I think of suicide, but I don't even come close to committing suicide. It just cross my mind from time to time.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Kate Not diagnosed yet (don't know if I am Autistic, Asperger's Syndrome, NLD or etc.) ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Kalen" pric...@softhome.net
It means that on IQ tests their verbal (language) score is higher than their performance (visual-spatial and math) score.
Have you been diagnosed with dyslexia? What did the people who diagnosed you with NLD say about your late reading?
Kalen
kategod ...@aol.com (Kate)
No. Nothing.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Kate Not diagnosed yet (don't know if I am Autistic, Asperger's Syndrome, NLD or etc.) ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
cornerthin ...@aol.com (Marc)
I never knew this! I have, though, wondered how come you ask me so often when I started reading, and what I was reading at which age...
*BAM* (Sound of Marc getting elbowed in the mouth again ;-) This NLD really isn't a "terribly done" diagnosis at all. It seems quite accurate in a lot of ways .. or at least there is a lot of reason to understand why you might get this diagnosis.
I think the main problem is that this diagnosis fails to cover certain traits, and those traits are covered by conditions which are on the PDD spectrum.
It almost seems like NLD is a subset of AS. Sort of like all AS people are NLD, but not all NLD people are AS.
~ Marc
David da...@dacha.freeuk.com
Would you like to rewrite that?
--
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/penny/1d-0.htm Matron took an anticipatory sip of her Madeira and wished that she hadn't laced the sexy Basque bodice quite so tightly.
"Hylander" a...@spam.com
This leads me to think that within HFA there are some common and special symptoms between Aspergers and NLD Both: Social skill, motor skill, sensory processing disorders and hypersensitivity, hyperfocus, good rote memory.
NLD: Unable to read, use symbols till late in life but able to pick up on speech.
ASD: Able to read early, but have problems with speech.
I could almost cut HFA like a pie here and cut the bigger pictures (ADD vs Autism) like a pie too.
(with some overlap) Both: Appears to not pay attention.
ADD/ADHD - hypofocus, normal motor, normal social, lack of ability to stick to routine.
HFA - hyperfocus, abnormal motor, abnormal social, reqiure more routine and rules.
There are also the dimensions of: Retardation / Normal - Savant (IQ) Antisocial (psychopathic, spiteful, using, kiniving) / Social (adept/charismatic charming) / Shunned (sad/desirous) Naive / Witty Mature / Immature Responsive/ Non Responsive Good motor / Bad Motor Repetitive / Adjusting / Random Neurological / Psychological Congential (genetic/hormonal) / Environmental (dietary, chemical exposure) Independant / Dependant Hyperfocus / Hypofocus Hypersensitive / Hyposensitive Skinny / Fat Left Handed / Right Handed Musical / Nonmusical Visual (photo memory) / Non visual (lack long memory) Aural / Non aural Hypolexical / Hyperlexical Mathematical-Analytical / Non Mathematical Verbal / Non Verbal Aggressive / P***ive
"Larry" n...@larry-arnold.com
I am getting a little fed up of these NLD vs PDD or whatever speculations because as I see it there is a broad neurodiversity landscape and some areas stand closer to each other on that landscape.
Take a real life landscape like France, sometimes Alsace has been in Germany, sometimes in France, so where is it really?
Conditions like NLD are only based upon the clustering of observations. If they only look for what constitutes the artificial definition of NLD then NLD will be dx'd however if someone concentrates on other factors then another DX will result.
Take for instance the overlaps between Dyspraxia and AS. I am definatly dyspraxic in the cl***ic sence but then that neglects other factors that make me AS besides There are no hard edges boundaries in the real world and you could go out one morning, take a test and accuratly fall within the cut off points for NLD and the next day take the same test and fall outside of it due to human variability.
Those who write manuals like DSMIV have a vested interest in rigidly defining, those who compile actuarial tables from which insurance claims are settled likewise like to have things clear cut. Politicians dither when they are framing rules about what conditions attract funding and do not, introducing a whole new imperative to the diagnostic process, which causes some DR's to diangose the condition that will attract the most appropriate services.
In my case it is apparant to me, having read enough on the subject, that I recieved a dx of AS as a "flag of convenience" in that I am definately somewhere on the autistic "spectrum" but without erly childhood info "one size" covers all. There is also a definate tendency in the UK since Lorna Wing first coined the usage "Aperger's syndrome" for it to be applied to any adult autistic who is sufficiently "high" funtioning to distance peoples perceptions from the connotations of the word "Autism" this has in retrospect done more harm than good to both tendencies within the "spectrum" which even Lorn Wing has acknowledged recently Because of these misunderstandings of "Spectrum" I have written a paper on the subject for which I am seeking publication in a reputable autism or pyscological journal so that people working in the field can appreciate that they are not "pure" scientists and are subject to a host of influences.
This is the one that Dr Simon Double Barreled Cohen has agreed to look at WRT to specific lerning disabilities or difficulties (again some prefer to say difficulty to avoid the ***ociation with disability) there is variance over terminology. There are some who wish to reserve dyslexia to literacy alone and others who see reading/writing difficulty as part of a wider syndrome or cluster disputing the existance of seperate categories of dyscalculia etc.
Reserch has not resolved these arguments yet and probably never will given the ridiculosly small sample sizes of most studies and the inbuilt tendency toward bias in reserchers who are not always as random in there samplimg as methodology requires I guess I had better cease at this point else this will become a lecture.
--
Larry L'autisme c'est moi "Space folds, and folded space bends, and bent folded space contracts and expands unevenly in every way unconcievable except to someone who does not believe in the laws of mathematics" ...
"Kalen" pric...@softhome.net
Exactly. That's what my problem with ADD was. It explained something - a lot, even - but it failed to explain some really major things.
Some professionals say that. I think it might be the ones at Yale. I don't quite agree. I know some people with obvious AS who don't have NLD. Just one example is Dave Gardner, a poster here, who has a mathematics degree from Oxford yet is glaringly AS.
Kalen
Suzanne s.removethis.da...@uclalumni.net
The two dx'ed Aspies in my husband's family (our son, and Phillip's nephew) are both very strong in math. In both cases, they are able to intuitively understand mathematical concepts before they are introduced in school. On the other hand, when they are being taught something that they have not yet figured out for themselves, they get caught by difficulty with sequencing.
This is just an idea, but perhaps NLD is AS combined with difficulty with math and/or science.
Suzanne
"Kalen" pric...@softhome.net
The characteristics of NLD also don't mention some traits of AS (obsessive interests).
I think NLD is supposed to be right hemisphere dysfunction and AS has been proposed to have the same areas of damage/deficit ("right brained autism" if you're talking about the area of deficit or "left brained autism" if you're referring to the area of strength). Non-AS HFAs, on the other hand, are supposed to have greater dysfunction in the left hemisphere - hence their greater difficulty with language. It's not that clear-cut in real life though, as nothing ever is.
Kalen
David Gardner da...@pipco.freeserve.co.uk
Thanks ;-) I've been working hard on my aspie glare you know! It certainly seemed to work havoc on the Cambridge boat...
Dave
Suzanne s.removethis.da...@uclalumni.net
I have seen "strong" interests in a couple of lists of NLD traits, but those lists seem to me to be uncannily similar to lists of AS traits.
That's exactly the problem--people almost never fit into the nice little pigeon holes the way diagnosticians want them to, and rather than accept it as a failure of the taxonomy, those who don't fit into the cl***ification neatly often end up getting no help. (While the "experts" debate about what condition best describes the person...) Suzanne
SamJCau ...@sc.rr.com (Samantha)
[snip] Also in the PIQ, there is a subtest called "picture arrangement", which has to do directly with the ability to evaluate social situations. You have a set of cartoon-strip segments that are given to you out of order, and it is up to you to figure out what happened. I've never actually taken an IQ test and would be scared (actually terrified!) to.
I wonder if the PIQ isn't skewed against those with AS who might have more anxiety about the timed aspect of the test (as opposed to the VIQ, which probably isn't timed), and thus feel very intimidated. I wonder also, aren't block design, digit span, picture ***embly, and other parts of the PIQ scale more on the spot performance-oriented and less requiring of static knowledge? Whereas the VIQ is vocabulary, comprehension, and "What is the diff between an apple and an orange?", etc.
[snip] I wonder what kind of difficulty with riding a bicycle? Is it poor general coordination (gross motor) which would impede one's ability to keep their foot on the pedals? Or could it be inability to "figure out" the pedals themselves?
Interesting. I can imagine how even kicking a ball could be a complex process WITHOUT the gross motor problem. If an autistic child has a hard time "reading between the lines", could they be unable to kick the ball because they don't understand what the purpose of the ball is or what *exactly* they are supposed to be doing? Sam
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