Peter Flom’s blog posts about living with a learning disability and thriving.
It’s June. School just let out. But it’s not too soon to start thinking about September. Are you going back to school yourself? Congratulations! Start planning! If it’s college or graduate school, you can plan courses; if you know what courses you’re taking, you may be able to get the books. You might be able [Continue]
In terms of where and with whom you spend most of your waking hours, there are three big switches in most people’s lives: In your first years, you spend time at home, with your parents or caregivers. Then you spend a long time in school, with teachers and classmates. Then you have work, with colleagues [Continue]
I am learning disabled. Hey, it says so right on the title to my blog. All too often, in today’s world, being afraid is the appropriate reaction to being learning disabled. It shouldn’t be. But it is. Why should we not be afraid? The world teaches us, from the start, to be afraid. Afraid of [Continue]
I’m sorry. You’re disabled, or your child is. Or grandchild. Or student. I’m disabled too. It sucks. On the other hand, being me isn’t so bad. And being different from other people, per se, is not so bad either. The world wouldn’t be very interesting if we were all the same, so it’s a good [Continue]
All human beings have limits. Learning disabled people may have more severe limits than others. And I am pretty sure that we get told, more often than others, to push our limits. In addition, parents of LD kids get told to push their kids’ limits. Sometimes this is good advice. Sometimes it isn’t. [Continue]
Some people think inside the box. They think within rules and parameters set forth by whatever authority exists. Some people think outside the box. They ignore these rules and parameters, and do their own thing. And then some of us don’t see a box. I was in law school for one semester. It didn’t go [Continue]
1. You can’t be LD, you’re so bright! Ummm, you can be smart and LD, average intelligence and LD, or less than average intelligence and LD. Just like you can be tall and fat, tall and thin, or tall and average weight. LD means that you have a pronounced deficit in some area of learning. [Continue]
So, what is NLD? How can a person be learning disabled (LD) and yet be good at reading and at math? Are labels like NLD useful, harmful, or both? What’s it like being weird? What is NLD? NLD is a neurological impairment that affects people’s abilities with many areas, typically ones that are not related [Continue]
It isn’t pleasant. Suppose you’re required, for some reason, to go to some auditorium. The seats are banked, and dark, and there’s a spotlight on the stage. As you enter and find a seat, a man enters the stage. Silence falls over the auditorium. All of a sudden, the man yells and points. Right at [Continue]
I view nonverbal learning disability (NLD) (or any disability) as a mountain between where we are and where we want to be. Some mountains are small, some are huge; some feature gentle slopes, others have vertical cliffs. In any case, there are four things you can do when confronted with a mountain in your path. [Continue]
