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NONVERBAL LEARNING DISABILITY:
HOW TO RECOGNIZE IT AND MINIMIZE
ITS EFFECTS
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Laura doesn't like school
because the other children don't want to socialize
with her. She doesn't enjoy lunch anymore because
she has no one to sit with, and now that she's
going on 9, her academic work is not as good as it
used to be. She has trouble with fractions and
reading comprehension.
Laura's teacher has tried to
talk with Laura, but Laura's response is a
monologue of details wtih no point or purpose. She
tries to help the girl with reading, but although
Laura understands the words, she doesn't seem to
comprehend the meaning of what she's read. Problems
like these are common for children with nonverbal
learning disability (NLD), who often experience
social rejection as well as academic difficulty
because of the symptoms of their
disability.
People with NLD have
difficulty processing nonverbal, nonlinguistic
information, yet they may be very good at
processing verbal information. They often fail to
monitor the reactions of a listener. Frequently,
they are excessively verbal and expressive. They
depend on verbal input, verbal mediation, and
verbal self-direction in order to function. They
may talk a great deal, yet use words in a narrow,
rigid way. Other behaviors affecting communication
and social interactions include interrupting
people, perhaps by speaking out of turn or by
moving back and forth between people engaged in
conversation, standing too close, or touching too
much. Consequently, other people may choose not to
interact with them, may avoid them, or may even
ostracize them. Individuals of all ages may exhibit
characteristics of NLD. The reactions of others
tend to leave them feeling isolated, lonely, and
sad. They usually want to learn appropriate social
behaviors, and they generally respond positively to
instruction that leads to improved social behavior.
This digest provides an overview of NLD and
principles for designing and implementing
instructional interventions to address its
effects.
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PEFORMANCE PATTERNS IN ASSESSMENT
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The consequences of NLD for
learning, life, and work cause concerned parents
and teachers to seek a psychological,
psychoeducational, or neuropsychological evaluation
in order to understand the nature of the
difficulties and possible remedies. Assessments
usually reveal a pattern of strengths in verbal
tasks and weaknesses in visual, spatial, and other
nonverbal tasks. For example, on the Wechsler
scale, the verbal IQ tends to be significantly
higher than the performance IQ. Verbal abstract
reasoning as measured by the Similarities subscale
of the Wechsler is often a relative strength, while
nonverbal reasoning as measured by Block Design is
often weak, as are Object Assembly, Picture
Arrangement, and Coding.
Achievement tests that
measure oral reading, word identification, word
decoding, and rote spelling yield relatively higher
scores than measures of reading comprehension. In
mathematics, computation is often stronger than
conceptual understanding and
applications.
Individuals with NLD tend to
focus on details rather than on the larger picture.
Therefore, they may have great difficulty setting
priorities, separating the main idea from details,
developing outlines, taking notes, and organizing
paragraphs based on topic sentences. Mathematics
concepts based on part-whole relationships, such as
fractions, decimals, and percentages, tend to be
problematic. Because of difficulties perceiving
spatial relationships, individuals with NLD may
have trouble copying spatial designs and drawing
these from memory. The inability to separate the
essentials from the details also affects
interpersonal and social communications, both
receptive and expressive. For example, people with
NLD might not be able to select and attend to the
important points of a conversation, or they may
ramble, providing a myriad of details without
making clear points.
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IMPROVING UNDERSTANDING AND PERFORMANCE
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Effective educational
interventions begin by addressing organizational
difficulties, working with part-whole
relationships, and working toward integrating
verbal and nonverbal processes. Interventions use
verbal strength to analyze and mediate information
(e.g., by describing a scene or situation to
oneself), and self-talk to provide direction for
completing tasks (e.g., by sequencing the steps to
a task and saying each step to oneself). Effective
interventions include modifying academic and social
environments and direct skills instruction. Direct
instruction must include a clear explanation of the
contexts in which the skill can be
applied.
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MODIFYING ENVIRONMENTS
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In the academic environment,
it is important to address the student's difficulty
in prioritizing tasks and organizing the steps
necessary to accomplish those tasks. A student who
is overwhelmed may become unable to function and
thus unable to complete the task.
Modifications that contribute
to a supportive academic environment for the person
with NLD include
- Ensuring that all the
student's teachers know that the student has NLD
and understand its implications.
- Establishing performance
expectations based on observation and knowledge
of what the student is able to complete or
produce, given the nature of the tasks and the
time available.
- Providing structure and
directions about priorities for completing
multiple tasks.
- Arranging with other
teachers to stagger the demands for products
(papers, projects, tests, etc.), so that they
are not all due at the same time.
Modifications that facilitate
socialization include the following:
- Being sensitive to
situations that have high potential for the
student to behave inappropriately and
intervening to avoid behavior that might lead to
criticism, teasing, or social ostracism.
- Engaging the student in a
collaboration in which the teacher or parent
signals when the student is making a social
error and the student agrees to immediately stop
the behavior.
- Arranging structured
social activities for young children (through
elementary school); coaching the child in how to
participate; and signaling the child discreetly
if he behaves in a manner that turns others
away.
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PROVIDING DIRECT INSTRUCTION
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Students with NLD generally
respond to direct instruction and guided practice.
Perception of spatial relationships, ability to
copy and draw geometric forms and designs,
handwriting, reading comprehension, mathematics
concepts and skills, and social perception and
communication skills can be improved by explicit
instruction. This instruction, modified for the
nature of the task or skill, incorporates the
following underlying principles:
- Be clear and direct in
addressing the difficulty.
- Gain a commitment from
the learner to collaborate to improve the
weakness.
- Begin the work with what
is most familiar and simple-the more novel or
complex, the more difficult the task.
- Rely heavily on the
student's verbal and analytic strengths.
- Model verbal mediation of
nonverbal information while teaching the learner
how to use this strength. For example, use words
to describe and analyze a scene or situation.
- Provide specific
sequenced verbal instructions, teaching the
learner to verbally self-direct and eventually
to internalize this process.
- Provide instruction to
directly associate and integrate verbal labels
and description with concrete objects, actions,
and experiences.
- Encourage the student to
use multisensory integration, both receptively
and expressively (read it, see it, hear it,
touch it, say it, write it, do it).
- Teach in a sequential,
step-by-step fashion.
- Identify opportunities to
generalize newly learned skills to other
situations and to practice in those
situations.
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DEVELOPING SOCIAL COMPETENCE
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The interpersonal and social
aspects of NLD have great significance for a
student's life. The individual who does not attend
to or accurately interpret the nonverbal
communication of others cannot receive a clear
message. Our concept of self is shaped in large
measure by the reflection of how others view us.
The person who has NLD, then, may not receive
feedback from others and may suffer from a less
clear concept of self. The diminished ability to
engage with others greatly limits the possibility
of defining himself based on such
feedback.
Because of their verbal
strengths, many individuals with NLD succeed in
formal educational situations. However, if their
social competence has not developed commensurately,
they may not find and keep employment at the level
for which their education has prepared
them.
Because individuals with NLD
make considerable progress in areas of weakness
when instruction is appropriate, accurate diagnosis
and appropriate instruction can have great benefit
for their lives.
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RESOURCES
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Foss, J.(1991). Nonverbal
learning disabilities and remedial interventions.
Annals of Dyslexia, 41, 128-140. Johnson,
D., and Myklebust, H.R. (1967). Nonverbal disorders
of learning. Learning disabilities: Educational
principles and practices. New York: Grune and
Stratton.
Rourke, B.P. (1995).
Syndrome of nonverbal learning disabilities.
New York: Guilford Press.
Thompson, S. (1997). The
source for nonverbal learning disabilities.
East Moline, IL: LinguiSystems. ARK Foundation,
Applied Research Knowledge, Allenmore Medical
Center, 19th & Union, Suite A-311, Tacoma, WA
98405, e-mail: ARKfan@aol.com
LD
OnLine
http://www.ldonline.org/
NLDA, Nonverbal Learning
Disorders Association, PO Box 220, Canton, CT
06019-0220. e-mail: NLDResources@aol.com,
http://www.nlda.org/
NLDline
http://www.nlda.org/
NLD On the
Web
http://www.nldontheweb.org/
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NOTE
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ERIC
Digests are in the public domain and may be freely
reproduced and disseminated, but please acknowledge
your source. This publication was prepared with
funding from the Office of Educational Research and
Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, under
Contract No. ED-99-CO-0026. The opinions expressed
in this report do not necessarily reflect the
positions or policies of OERI or the Department of
Education.
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