The mountain of academic problems with nonverbal learning disabilities

Many people with nonverbal learning disabilities have few academic problems. Those that do tend to have problems in a few areas:

1. Graphomotor problems \dash poor handwriting, which can lead to illegible answers, or to arithmetic errors from misreading our own writing.

2. Speed of processing problems \dash these are especially problematic on timed tests, where many NLDers have difficulty finishing on time.

3. Problems in some areas of mathematics, especially those that require abstract thinking, particularly abstract visual thinking.

Giving up on academics with nonverbal learning disabilities

Giving up on academics, or saying you didn’t really want to get to the other side of the mountain, is straightforward: Drop out of school. Unfortunately, this poses a lot of problems for employment, especially as many of the jobs that do not demand much education are ones that NLDers are bad at (e.g. waiter/waitress, supermarket worker, some kinds of sales jobs, acting), and so on. They often demand physical coordination and speed, or, in the case of sales, rapidly sensing what another person is feeling, and forming bonds with others quickly. Fortunately, many NLDers actually like school and do fairly well at it (although some may need various accommodations, which I will discuss in another article). In addition, many NLDers have significant problems with mathematics, although this is not universal by any means. Giving up on academics, certainly before graduating high school, is a last resort; it is probably not an option that many NLDers will have to use.

Going through the mountain of academics when you have NLD

This is probably the area where going through the mountain is most recommended; it may also be the area where it is most useful, particularly if you are not working while in school. It is possible to study more hours than most kids do. It may not be fun, it may not be desirable, but it is possible, and there are many successful NLDers who did it . This strategy can be combined with some from going over the mountain and some from going around the mountain, so that you study a little more than average, take a little longer than average, and use your ingenuity to deal with some difficulties.

Going over the mountain of academics when you have nonverbal learning disabilities

Going over the mountain involves trying harder. This can be done in academics, too. One way to do this is to hire a tutor, or use your school’s tutoring facilities, if they exist. A less expensive alternative is to buy additional books – many courses now have study guides available.

Going around the mountain of academics when you have NLD

I am going to take this subject by subject.

Mathematics offers tremendous opportunities for going around the mountain of NLD. For example, when you need to learn the multiplication table, you can do it purely by rote (which some, but by no means all, NLDers seem to be good at) or you can learn tricks. I hated rote memory work, so I devised a lot of tricks, as follows:

2 times is one that few people seem to have trouble with. One way of doing it, though, is to just add the number to itself.

3 times is another that a lot of people just get. But you can add the number to twice the number. For example: 8*3 = ??? Well, twice 8 is 16, and 16 + 8 = 24. You can partially check your answer by adding the digits in the answer and seeing if it is a multiple of 3 (it should be…..for example, with 24, we add 2 and 4, to get 6, which is a multiple of 3.

4 times is just twice twice.

5 times If you feel comfortable dividing by 2 (cutting in half) then you can add a 0 and then divide by 2 (e.g. 7*5=????, add a 0 to 7 to get 70. Cut in half to get 35). If you don’t like cutting big numbers in half, you can cut the original number in half, rounding down, and then add a 5 if you needed to round (e.g. 7*5 = ????, cut 7 in half and round down to get 3, add a 5 (because you had to round) to get 35. If you don’t need to round, you add 0.

9 times (Yes, I know I skipped 6, 7, and 8, I’m coming back to 8, and will talk about 6 and 7). There are several tricks for 9. Here are two I like:

The finger trick. Hold out your hands, fingers spread, palms away from you. Your left pinky is finger number 1, your left ring finger is finger 2, and so on. To multiply a number by 9, hold down the corresponding finger. Then, the tens digit is the number of fingers to the left, and the units digit is the number of fingers to the right. For example: 9*6=???? Finger 6 is your right thumb. Fold it down, and there are five fingers to the left and four to the right, so the answer is 54.

The subtract 1 then subtract from 9 trick. To multiply by 9, subtract one from the number you want to multiply, that’s the tens digit. Then subtract that number from 9, and that’s your units digit. For example 9*7 = ???? Well, 7-1 = 6 and 9-6=3 so the answer is 63.

8 times. Multiply by 9, then subtract the number that you are multiplying. For example, 8*6 = ???? well 9*6=54 and 54-6 = 48 so the answer is 48. If you are using the finger trick, you can reduce the short term memory demands by leaving the finger down.

6 and 7 times OK. I admit it. I don’t have tricks for these. But that only leaves three multiplication facts to learn: 6*6, 7*6 and 7*7; you can probably manage that.

Two other skills that are very useful ways around the mountain are stimation and digit checking. Estimation involves getting a quick idea of the approximate answer. For example, in a multiplication problem, the number of digits in the answer is always either the sum of the number of digits in the two multiplicands, or one less than that. This is more clearly shown in an example. Suppose, for instance, the problem is 342 * 12

Well, 342 has 3 digits, and 32 has two digits, so the answer must have either 3+2 = 5 digits or one less that that (4 digits). If you have a long division problem, this method can be used to check if your answer is possible.

Digit checking means that certain final digits are possible. For example, in the above problem of 342*12, the final digit of the answer must be 2*2 = 4; for another example, if the problem is 12863 * 232, you can tell that the answer must have either 5+3=8 digits or one less than that; and the last digit must be 3*2= 6.

Quite a variety of digit checks exist. For example, if the problem involves squaring a number, the last digit must be 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, or 9.

There are also a number of divisibility tricks (one number is divisible by another if a dividing one by the other leaves no remainder). Divisibility by 3 (and 9) can be checked by adding up the digits and seeing if the result is divisible by 3 (e.g., 4643 annot be the result of multiplying an integer by 3 (or 9), because 4+6+4+3 = 17 which is not divisible by 3. number is divisible by 4 if, and only if, the last 2 digits of the number are divisible by 4 (e.g 4,222,312,148 is divisible by 4 because 48 is). Similarly, a number is divisible by 8 only if the last 3 digits are (so the number above is not divisible by 8, because 148 is not). A number is divisible by 5 if the last digit is 0 or 5, and a number is divisible by 6 if it is divisible by 3 and it is even. I know of no simple divisibility trick for 7.

Expository writing

Many NLD people have trouble with writing, especially with the longer essays that are required in high school and college. It’s usually not so much the writing itself as the organization that causes problems. One method that I have found useful is what I call super-outlining. Start with a main topic. This might be assigned by the teacher, or it might be your choice. It could also be a limited choice – for instance, you might be required to write an essay about one of the Presidents of the United States in the 20th century, but have a choice about which. Once you have a main topic, you make sections and write a bit (say, a paragraph or two) about each. For a short essay, that might be enough. If not, divide each section into subsections, and write about each of them. Keep going until your essay is about the right length, then fix the format and punctuation, work on the flow between sections, and you are done. A very long work might have many levels.

Foreign languages

I was never very good at foreign languages. I studied Spanish in high school, and, much later, lived in Israel and studied Hebrew. I have a couple hints for NLD students of foreign languages, based on my own experience and that of others:

1. Don’t try to learn a language with another script.
2. When learning vocabulary, try to come up with cognates (words that sound similar and have similar meanings). If I were learning Spanish now, I would list vocabulary in three columns: Spanish, English, and Cognate. This is easy with the Romance languages, particularly if, like many NLDers, you know English well. For example, the Spanish for `Earth’ is `Terra’, which doesn’t seem to be a cognate, but there are words like `terrarium’ and `terrestrial’.

Science NLDers often have a lot of trouble with the laboratory parts of some sciences, due to our poor visual spatial abilities and our lack of coordination. One way around this mountain is to try to find someone who is good at the laboratory parts of science, but not as good with the theory, and see if you can be partners. Since many NLDers are good at writing, it might be that one partner could do the experiments while the other writes it up (be sure to OK this with your teacher).

In this article, I introduced the idea of nonverbal learning disabilities (or any disability) as a mountain between where you are and where you want to go. In the current article, I will discuss the mountain of sensory overload problems, and ways of coping.

Nonverbal learning disabilities and sensory overload

Many NLDers have problems with sensory overload. This is partly because we have to do a lot of processing consciously that neurotypical people do without thought. Sensory overload is more or less what it sounds like. There is so much coming at us – via sight, hearing, smell, touch – that we can’t cope. We get overwhelmed. Even people without learning disabilities can have this happen if too much is going on – too many people, too many sights, sounds and smells at once. But we NLDers tend to have it more often, at lower levels.

How can we cope with this? I will use the analogy of the mountain, and the four ways: Giving up, going over the mountain, going through the mountain, or going around the mountain.

I didn’t want to get to the other side of the mountain – giving up on sensory overload because of nonverbal learning disabilities

With regard to sensory overload problems, giving up would mean seeking to live with very little input. How exactly this would play out would depend on the circumstances in which the overload arose. Thus, if you get overwhelmed by the noise in restaurants or at parties, giving up would involve staying at home or engaging only in relatively quiet activities. This is at least somewhat workable. It means that you will miss a lot of socializing, and, if you are not careful in how you decline invitations, you may offend people. Also, occasionally there are events that you simply cannot avoid. But this is a case where giving up is not altogether ridiculous.

Similarly, if you are easily overwhelmed by too much visual stimulation, it may be possible to arrange your living space and possibly your workspace so that they are less visually busy. If, like many NLDers, you are driven mad by being in a dentist’s chair, you could just wait for your teeth to fall out. This is not a good option. But you might find a sympathetic dentist and explain what bothers you and work out ways around it (one NLD child I know was panicked by the chair moving. This could be gotten around by having him get out of the chair and back into it; or by warning him when the chair was going to move. On the other hand, some NLDers are annoyed by the feel of electric clippers on hair – this is relatively easy to avoid.

One of the many reasons that college is often better than high school for NLDers is that, in high school, you have very little control over your school environment, and relatively little over your living space. Most adolescents live with their parents or other adults; they may have some space of their own (or they may not) but most of the space is not going to be under their control. This changes in college, particularly if you live on your own, either in a single dorm room or in an apartment or other arrangement.

Going through or over the mountain of sensory overload because of nonverbal learning disabilities

There are limited opportunities for `trying harder’ in terms of sensory overload. What is needed are ways to try less hard. Trying harder often makes overload problems worse. There are also relatively few ways to take longer to deal with sensory overload. The problem is inherently happening all at once. If the input could be spread out, the problem would disappear

Going around the mountain of sensory overload because of NLD

Sensory overload manifests itself in various ways, and so there are various ways around the mountain. In lectures in school, and in meetings at work, I find it hard to look at a person and listen to them at the same time. I also find it hard to take notes, preferring to concentrate on listening. Therefore, I use my note pad for doodles. This makes it appear that I am taking notes (and thus not able to look at the speaker), and frees me to pay attention.

Sometimes, if there is sensory overload at your house, it is possible to use one room as a refuge. As a child and adolescent, I found that a long bath often relieved my sensory overload. Not only were baths calming in and of themselves (as they are to many people), but the bathroom is a spot where you are unlikely to be disturbed and where sensory input can be limited. I also find it helpful to wake up early; early mornings tend to be quiet times. In a lot of cases, this is also a good strategy for work – a lot more people will stay late than come in early (but be careful that your boss knows you are arriving before everyone else).

For the problem of excess noise, one relatively straightforward solution is earplugs. However, you have to be careful about the social situation. If you are at a restaurant with friends, it would be unacceptably rude to put in earplugs; but it might be possible to work out a way to cope in some situations. For example, if there is only one other person and he or she is a very good friend, tell him or her about the problem, and ask that you use a pad to communicate (as if you were deaf and did not lip read).

The earplug solution can work well in a workplace through a bit of subterfuge: You can wear earphones, pretending that they are playing music; if you buy a pair of earphones that are large, they will be obvious, and anyone wishing to talk to you will know you have them on and will give some sort of signal for you to take them off. However, you shouldn’t get the sort that cancel \emph{all} noise, as they will block out things you need to hear (such as the phone ringing).

Similarly, in some situations, you can wear the sort of blindfold that some people wear when they sleep, and I believe there are nose plugs that function similarly for smells.

I didn’t want to go to the other side of the mountain: Giving up on social skills because of nonverbal learning disabilities

In social problems, the giving-up strategy results in withdrawal,and in attempts to make believe that we do not want friendship. This is a pretense. People do vary in the degree to which they want friends, in how many friends they want to have, and in how much time they want to spend alone vs. with other people. NLDers may be on the low side in all of these; but there are very, very few people who literally want no one else in their lives, and none of the NLDers I have met are among these few.

An extreme form of giving up on social problems is deliberately being offensive, so as not to risk being rejected. Here, the rather silly saying that `You haven’t failed unless you’ve tried’, is stood neatly on its head and becomes `If you haven’t tried, you haven’t really failed’. I used this strategy a lot in junior high school and the last years of elementary school – I would do things I knew other kids would find offensive, so that, when they didn’t want to be friends with me, I could blame the offensive behavior and deflect attention from the thought that it might be me they didn’t like. I don’t think this was a consciously worked-out strategy at the time, but whether it was conscious or not, it is not a particularly good strategy. It does not get you closer to your goal of having friends; although, to continue the mountain metaphor, while it doesn’t get you to the other side of the mountain (friendship) it does at least let you (think you’ve) avoided getting buried in a landslide (outright rejection).

A slightly less extreme form of this strategy is to pursue solitary interests. One such interest is reading, and many NLDers lose themselves in this activity for hours at a time. There is, of course, nothing wrong with reading, in and of itself. But if you want to make friends, spending time lying in bed reading is not going to work.

Going through the mountain of social skills when you have nonverbal learning disabilities

There are some exercises that can be used to help with various aspects of socialization. For paralanguage skills, it can be very useful to give examples of different tones of voice, volumes, nonverbal sounds, rates of speech and emphasis. (In the following, I give roles to `teacher’ and `student’, these could be actual students and teachers, or they could be parent and child, or they could be NLD adult and a friend or relative. It is possible to make a lot of this into a game.). Have teacher say the same sentence in a lot of different ways, and ask student to interpret. Then have student try to use these tools to communicate different things. Teacher and student can watch TV shows together, and try to identify different patterns (this is especially useful if you tape the show so it can be seen multiple times). For a greater challenge, try watching a show that’s in a language you don’t speak. Another tool is to tape record student and then have teacher and student go over it together. Similarly, have teacher make nonverbal sounds with various meanings, while student tries to identify them. Then have student try to make the sounds. Yet another idea is to get videotapes of famous speeches, and see how the speaker uses all the nonverbal tools to increase the power of his or her speech.

For more exercises, see most any good book on NLD, e.g. the ones by Duke and Nowicki and their colleagues, or the one by Lavoie, or others.

Going over the mountain of social skills when you have nonverbal learning disabilities

The idea of going over the mountain is to take longer to do what neurotypicals do. I have not found this very useful for social skills. The problem is that social interactions happen in real time. You can’t say to someone ‘just hold that expression a minute while I process what that combination of facial expression, body position, and tone means’.

Going around the mountain of social skills when you have NLD

Going around the mountain refers to finding alternate solutions. For social skills, the internet provides an enormous number of ways of getting around the mountain. Many, maybe most, of the difficulties we have with socialization disappear when we interact through type, rather than face-to-face. First of all, when communication is through type, there is no nonverbal communication: No faces, no gestures, no body language. You can’t tell what clothes the person is wearing. The issue of body space disappears.

There are a number of ways to interact through the internet, some of them are:

1. Mailing lists
2. Blogs
3. Websites
4. Facebook
5. Twitter
6. LinkedIn
A mailing list is a way for people with some interest in common to communicate. Rather than send e-mail to one person, you send it to an entire group, and then the people in the group can read it and respond to it with their own e-mails, if they are interested. There are mailing lists about NLD, the most general of which is NLD-in-common (you can find out more about NLD in Common by a simple google search), but there are groups about almost every subject. One place to look for such groups is on the Yahoo groups site. Another good site is Google groups

Just to give you some idea of what sorts of things people have e-mail lists about, I am on three devoted to statistics (I am a statistician – remember! NLD folk are bad at math – and we have no sense of humor), and another four devoted to particular software. There are lists about almost anything. These lists vary considerably, in several ways:

1. Moderated vs. unmoderated
2. Open vs. closed
3. Amount of mail
4. Degree of `off-topic’ chat that is permitted
5. Replying etiquette

A moderated list has a moderator. This person runs the list, and screens all messages. The advantage of this is that you are saved the bother of getting (and deleting) spam and unwanted, totally off-topic mail. The disadvantage is that there can be delays in getting mail posted, which can make it harder to have a discussion, as these delays can mount.

An open list is open to anyone who wants to join; in a closed list, the list owner has to approve you, and the list may be open to only certain types of people. The advantages and disadvantages of open and closed lists depend on the subject matter. Do you want to discuss things in a small group of people who have a lot in common, or in a large group that has broader interests and skills? There isn’t a right or wrong answer.

The amount of mail also varies. Some lists generate hundreds of messages a day; others generate only a few per month. Mailing lists also differ in how much `off-topic’ chat they tolerate. Again, this is a matter of taste and the amount of time you have available. Finally, mailing lists vary in whether the norm is to reply to just the person who sent the message, or to the whole list. The former keeps your in-box much emptier, and saves you the (slight) hassle of deleting mail you don’t want. The latter allows for much more general discussion. Again, which is `better’ is largely a matter of taste.

Whatever kind of list you join, it is a good idea to read the messages for a few days, and possibly to browse the archives, if they are available, before jumping in. This can save a lot of embarrassment.

Blogs

By now, almost everyone has heard of blogs. They also vary hugely, and I am not expert enough to delineate the differences. But many of the differences are similar to those for mailing lists – Blogs vary in size, openness, busyness and so on. And blogs exist for all sorts of interests, as well. The article you are reading right now is a blog post.

Web sites

There are, by this point, millions and millions of web sites. Some of these are places to discuss things, but others may be very valuable in terms of finding other resources. In addition, personal web sites can tell you something about a person, or allow you to say something about yourself. My blog is on my website, which is called IAmLearningDisabled.com

Twitter

Twitter lets you send short messages to people; then other people can find your messages, and follow you, and you can develop a following. You can also use Twitter to keep in touch with family and friends, if they are also on Twitter.
I use Twitter a lot; I have three accounts, one for general stuff (@PeterFlom), one for statistics (@PeterFlomStat), and one for LD related things (@PeterFlomLD).

From the internet to face to face when you have nonverbal learning disabilities

Of course, interacting through the internet cannot completely replace face-to-face interaction: A lot is missing. But if you meet people face-to-face only after getting to know them on-line or in other ways that don’t involve nonverbal communication, then they already know who you are, and may already have decided that they like you. They are then much more likely to cut you some slack if you don’t behave just as they expect; indeed, in some cases, it may be a good idea for you to alert them ahead of time as to your disability.

Summary

As you can probably tell, I am a big fan of the internet. There are probably some other good methods for getting around the mountain of NLD, but, for me, the internet has tons of advantages. As with everything I write on this subject, what I say reflects my experiences, and your mileage may vary.

In this article, I introduced the analogy of nonverbal learning disability (or any disability) as a mountain between where you are, and where you want to go. In the next series of articles, I will address five specific problems that many NLDers have, and how they create mountains:

• Socialization
• Sensory overload
• Academics
• Organization and visual spatial problems
• Zero-order skills

This article is the first of two on socialization problems.

In later articles, I will look at how the different strategies for dealing with the mountain can work.

Socialization problems and the NLD mountain

Many people with nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) have tremendous problems making friends. We can be gullible and too trusting, and we can have trouble with transitions between the levels of a relationship (that is, we may try to jump from casual acquaintance to deepest intimacy in ways that make others feel very awkward). We have tremendous problems reading all the social cues that go along with language (tone of voice, facial expression, body language, and so on). We have trouble telling good natured teasing from meanness; we have trouble telling what things are told in confidence and which are open.

Verbal and nonverbal communication and the mountain of nonverbal learning disabilities

You will see various numbers quoted in various places about how much is communicated verbally and nonverbally. I don’t think the exact numbers are important. I’m not even sure they are meaningful. I don’t know if you can divide meaning up that way. But nonverbal communication is clearly important. To see just how important it is, try watching a favorite TV show with the sound turned off. You still get quite a lot, don’t you? Now try watching the show with your eyes closed. Even if it’s a show where people don’t move around much, you miss a lot, right? That’s how we NLD people are. We watch life with our eyes closed. We miss a lot.

Nonverbal communication can be divided into several sorts of skills; different authors divide it slightly differently, Duke and his colleagues divide it like this:

1. Paralanguage
2. Facial expression
3. Space and touch
4. Gestures and posture
5. Rhythm and tone

(source: Nowicki and Duke)

Paralanguage and the mountain of nonverbal learning disability

Paralanguage includes all the aspects of sound that accompany speech: Tone, volume, rate of speech, and nonverbal sound patterns (all the ums, uhs, and so on while speaking). Paralanguage is especially important when you cannot see the person you are talking to, for instance, on the telephone.

Children respond to tone of voice before they learn any vocabulary. Tone of voice is critical in communicating such things as sarcasm, and, on a more basic level, to telling the difference between a simple statement: `John is late’, an angry exclamation:`John is late!’ or a question `John is late?’. Many NLD people have problems both with understanding tone and with producing the appropriate tone. The former leads to confusion on the NLDers part, and the latter can lead to conflict between what NLDers are saying and how they say it; for example, saying `Have a good day!’ in an angry tone is likely to confuse the person you are talking to. Tone of voice communicates emotions such as anger, sadness, happiness, or excitement.

Nonverbal sound patterns refers to all the noises we make while speaking that aren’t words. Sounds like `Uh-huh’ (for yes) and `UhUh’ for no (notice how similar these are, yet NT people hear the difference without a problem). `Mmmm-mmmm-mmmm’ can be a warning (when the second part is louder than the first, and the third is in a rising-falling pitch) or a sound of delight. NLD people can have a lot of trouble hearing these.

Rate of speech varies from person to person and from culture to culture. For example, people from the southern United States often speak more slowly than people from New York City. But NT people from all places use rate of speech to communicate meaning; and they also read meaning into rate of speech. Slow speech can be soothing (as when a parent tries to calm an upset child) but it can also make the speaker appear ignorant or nervous (as when someone speaks slowly when called on in class). Contrariwise, rapid speech can excite people, and can make the speaker appear knowledgable, but it can also confuse people. Slower speech is also used when explaining something. Faster speech can express confidence, or it can express being rushed or nervous. Combined with loudness, it can indicate an emergency. NT people vary their rates of speech easily and unconsciously, but NLD people may have a lot of trouble with this.

Emphasis and variation can radically change the meaning of a sentence. Duke, Nowicki and Martin give the following illustration (which I have changed a little): Take the sentence `I didn’t say John took my money’. This sentence can mean at least seven different things.

1. That you didn’t say John took your money.
2. That someone else said that John took your money.
3. That, although you didn’t \emph{say} John took it, you think he did.
4. That you said someone other than John took your money.
5. That you loaned or gave John money
6. That John took someone else’s money.
7 That John took something else of yours.

How can it mean all these different things? Try saying the sentence first with no emphasis, and then emphasizing each different word.

Facial expression and the NLD mountain

Many people with nonverbal learning disabilities have a lot of problems recognizing facial expressions. Some of us don’t recognize them at all. Others may recognize the basic emotions (e.g., anger, fear, sadness) especially in photographs, but have difficulty doing this in `real time’, and may have difficulty with more subtle emotions. One young NLDer played with a computer game from Sesame Street. He mastered most of the activities easily, but one asked him to paste eyes, a nose, and mouth on Elmo to make a `happy’, `sad’, or `angry’ face, and he had enormous problems with this.

This can cause a lot of problems and confusion. Imagine the confusion caused someone speaking excitedly, but with a bored or expressionless face. Or the confusion felt by someone who doesn’t interpret the facial expressions of others.

Space, touch, and nonverbal learning disabilities

Personal space refers to a sort of `bubble’ that we all carry around with us all the time \dash or rather, several bubbles. People get nervous or upset when others come into their bubbles in ways they deem inappropriate (or, sometimes, when they stay out of those bubbles). One common way of classifying these bubbles is

1. Intimate
2. Personal
3. Social
4. Public

The intimate bubble is reserved for very close friends and relatives, and for discussion of highly personal questions.

The personal bubble is used for general conversations between two people, or among a few. The social bubble is for people we have just met, or for discussions with larger groups, and the outermost, public bubble is for everything else, but it usually excludes conversation, except in emergencies.

The size of these bubbles varies from culture to culture. Research in the United States suggests that the intimate bubble goes out to about 18 inches, the personal bubble from 18 inches to 4 feet, the social bubble from 4 feet to 12 feet, and the public bubble from 12 feet to infinity (source: Nowicki et al, p. 44) NLDers often have trouble with both their own bubbles and those of others. We may be overly sensitive to people being in our bubbles, or we may act in ways that are not `bubble-appropriate’. The amount of touch that is permissible or encouraged also varies tremendously from culture to culture. (source: LaVoie).

Within a culture, it varies from situation to situation. Touching people more or less than their culture deems proper in a particular situation is another source of trouble for NLDers. If we touch too much, we seem pushy and aggressive (and, in the worst case, we may seem like we are harassing the other person). If we touch too little, we seem cold and indifferent. In reality, though, we may be none of these things, but simply be confused.

Not only must we worry about how much to touch, but where on the body it is appropriate to touch, and what these touches mean. This is further confused because the same touch means different things in different situations. Bumping into someone in a crowded train is not the same as bumping someone on an empty street. Touches that are appropriate in a doctor’s office or between lovers (but which mean very different things in the two cases!) are not appropriate in other situations.

The use (and abuse) of space and touch is another illustration of the problems NLDers have. These issues are not formally taught, like math or reading. If asked, most people would probably say that they know the right amount of space to use or the right touch to use through intuition. This cannot be the case. If these were known by intuition, they would not vary from culture to culture. They are learned behaviors, but they are taught informally and through nonverbal means. NT children read the nonverbal lessons, NLDers have much more trouble doing so.

In addition, when the rules are broken, NTers may not be able or willing to say exactly what is wrong in ways that NLDers can understand. They know something is wrong, but they may not know what; or, if they do know what it is, they may assume that the other person deliberately violated the rules, or that the other person is simply `weird’ or `stupid’. At the least, this can lead to social rejection or ostracism; in some cases, it can lead to violence. (source Duke et al, Chapter 6)

Gestures and postures and nonverbal learning disabilities
Gestures and postures are similar in that they both involve the use of the body to communicate, and in that they communicate at a distance. One difference is that postures are inevitable \dash we always adapt one posture or another, while gestures are, if not exactly deliberate, at least somewhat voluntary. Another difference is that gestures involve only part of the body (most often the hands) while postures involve the entire body. NTers use a huge array of gestures and postures, and they read others’ use of these without even thinking about it. One way to concentrate your attention on gestures is, again, to watch a movie or TV show with the sound off. But here this exercise is incomplete, because, often, gestures are used to accentuate and explicate the meaning of words. For example, the word `Stop’ has many meanings. As a command, it can mean `Stop moving forward’ as when warning someone to not get closer to you, or it can mean `stop acting that way’ as when telling a children that they are out of control. The first meaning might be accompanied by holding your arm straight out with your wrist bent and your fingers up, while the latter might be accompanied by shaking your finger at someone. Use of the right gesture intensifies and clarifies what the word means; use of the wrong gesture leads to confusion.

Sources

Nowicki, S. and Duke, M.P (1992). Helping the child who doesn’t fit in

Duke, M.P., Martin, E.A. and Nowicki, S. (1996). Teaching your child the language of social success

LaVoie, R (2006) It’s so much work to be your friend

Yes, disorder (or disability) implies something is wrong. And, at least for me, something IS wrong. To deny it (as people did a LOT during my childhood, and still do somewhat today) is kind of insulting in a weird way, because it says that the things I have a lot of difficulty with (or find impossible altogether) are more my fault. Everyone on Earth is different from everyone else. SOME of us are disabled.

Why is this so problematic for NLD/AS etc.?

I am also very nearsighted and see out of only one eye. This is also a disability, and no one has much problem with saying that it is.  “Oh, he’s nearsighted!” – that’s not an insult, it’s just a statement of fact. My nearsightedness is (mostly) corrected by glasses; my one-eyed-ness is not correctable at my age (I had an operation when I was 3 that didn’t work; I’ve tried vision therapy to no avail). So, my 3-D vision stinks. And if I explain this to people, neither they nor I have any problem saying that this is something wrong with me. It would be better if I could see 3-D. It would be better if I didn’t need glasses.

I suppose I could call myself “differently-sighted” but that’s sort of silly.

There’s really no stigma to vision problems.

When it comes to learning disabilities, all this changes. Because there IS stigma attached.

But this stigma changes how the words feel, rather than what the effects are.  Just like I can’t see 3-D, there are other things I can’t do that most people do very easily.

For one example: I can’t draw. At all. I can’t consistently draw a cylinder. My wife is an artist – she has tried to teach me.  I have an MA in special ed, art therapists have tried to teach me. I was IN special ed, and back then people tried to teach me. It doesn’t work. My brain doesn’t DO that.  There are lots of other examples. I get lost. ALL the time. I can’t estimate time. I can’t remember when things happened.  ALL of these are disabilities.  It is BETTER to be able to find your way to a friend’s house than it is to get lost.  Getting out of the subway and going straight to my destination is BETTER than wandering around lost. (Just yesterday I wandered around lost, trying to get to a place I had been to several times before – I was going there to give a presentation on recursive partitioning).

They are disabilities whether you call them NLD, AS, learning problems, learning disabilities, learning differences or kumquats.

But there’s that stigma.

How do we get rid of the stigma?

By claiming it, not by denying it.

So, whenever someone says something like “You can’t be learning disabled, you have a PhD” I say “Yes I can. It’s just that I’m good at academic subjects”.  If a longer conversation ensues, I can point out all the many things that people learn to do.  Like finding your way home.

There are some things wrong with me. There are also some things right with me.

The things that are wrong don’t make me evil, bad, lazy, crazy, stupid or whatever, they make me disabled.

The things that are right with me don’t make me good, energetic, sane, smart or whatever. They make me gifted.

Together, and with a lot of other stuff added, they make me Peter

Maybe we’re born with it. Maybe it’s given to us.

Because, for many people with LD or autism or Asperger’s or whatnot, the world keeps tossing us the unexpected. Praise for what’s easy. No praise for what’s hard. Blame for God knows what (yeah, it’s obvious to you, if you’re neurotypical, but it’s not obvious to us! What did we do wrong? What did you want? What did you  want us to do? What did you do? How should we know that???

And then, blango! Out of the blue – YOU GOT IT WRONG!

Well, after a while of being randomly punished and rewarded for no apparent reason we get anxious. If you do that to rats, they get anxious. If you do it to dogs, they get anxious.  If we didn’t, we’d have to be catatonic.

In children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), there is an ongoing pattern of uncooperative, defiant, and hostile behavior toward authority figures that seriously interferes with the youngster’s day to day functioning. Symptoms of ODD may include:

• Frequent temper tantrums
  Excessive arguing with adults
  Often questioning rules
  Active defiance and refusal to comply with adult requests and rules
  Deliberate attempts to annoy or upset people
  Blaming others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
  Often being touchy or easily annoyed by others
  Frequent anger and resentment
  Mean and hateful talking when upset
  Spiteful attitude and revenge seeking

I was such a child, although I never got a formal diagnosis of ODD. I had all of the traits listed to one degree or another.

Why would a child act this way? Why did I?

There can be many reasons, including neurological problems. But in my case, at least, I think a lot of the defiance and opposition was an attempt to define myself in a hostile world and to organize the overwhelming flood of information that I was unable to process the way neurotypical children do. I still use it to organize knowledge.

Let me look at each in turn.

Define myself in a hostile world.

There is a scene in the movie “The Paper” in which one character (Henry)  asks “When did you start getting so paranoid?” and the other (Michael McDougal)  replies “When everyone started plotting against me”. And this is how the world can seem to us LD people, especially when we are kids. Kids, and especially kids in the autism ballpark, are not that great at distinguishing active hostility from the failed attempts of some well-meaning people to “get us”. And, so, for me, the world was largely made up of people who were against me. If you experience everyone else as hostile and oppositional, then reacting with hostility and opposition isn’t a disorder, it’s adaptive.

Organize the overwhelming flood of information that I was unable to process

Many LD children (and adults!) have difficulty processing information, or particular types of information. I never really learned to take notes. But I was always very facile and quick at figuring out opposing points of view (in high school, I once had a debate with myself!). This is a way of organizing information. In order to figure out why what the teacher is saying is wrong, you have to understand what the teacher is saying. Once you’ve understood it, it’s a lot easier to remember. (this doesn’t work well with facts, of course, but it works well with more abstract ideas).

More signs

Look at your child when he or she is being oppositional or defiant. Is he enjoying himself? Is he happy? Is she having a good time? If the honest answers are yes, then something else is going on. But when I see kids like this, the answer is usually a very clear “no”. So, if your child isn’t enjoying a behavior, why does she keep engaging in it? It must be something else; it must be that the alternative feels worse.

What to do?

During an episode of defiance, it may be very hard to step back. Parents aren’t perfect creatures! But when things are calm, try thinking about what the child is so strongly defending himself against. Why isn’t she seeing whatever it is the way you are seeing it? What’s going wrong? Because, again, if your child doesn’t enjoy being defiant, then he must be being defiant because the alternative seems worse. Why does it?

So, I am very fast and very slow. What’s up with that?

“Processing speed” is not a unitary construct. The thing they are talking about on the WAIS (and the WISC, too) is visual processing speed. And, on this, the score I get on the WAIS is a good reflection of my abilities (or lack thereof). It helps explain why I am bad at so many visual tasks – that is, nonverbal tasks, the tasks that people with nonverbal learning disability are bad at. Now, some people with NLD are also slow processors of verbal information. But not all of us are like that. People vary.

People are complicated. If you want simple, study something else.

But these labels can be useful. They can help us find each other, they can help us find resources, they can make us feel less alone. Those are all good things. We can also shorten some of our speech and writing by referring to clusters of symptoms by a set of initials. That’s kind of convenient. But we must be careful that the convenience serves us, rather than the other way ’round.

Boxes are convenient too. They let us pack things and move them around easily. It’s a lot easier to move a box of groceries than to move each item. And some groceries pack nicely, too. Even if the groceries don’t pack nicely, you can stuff the box with newspaper or something to make it snug and fit.

But people aren’t groceries. There’s no newspaper to stuff in and make us fit, and we are not meant to be easily portable. “Oh! He’s SRD” (some Random Disorder) “stick him in XXXX and give him XXX”. No. That is, I admit, more convenient to the people assigning us to special classes or special help or special whatever. But we don’t fit. When it comes to people (and especially people like us) one size does not fit all. One size doesn’t fit anyone.

Labels can be useful. Boxes are for groceries.

And, since my label (NLD) would put me in a box that says “has no sense of humor” I will close with a joke.

A guy goes to have a suit made. He comes back and….

“This suit doesn’t fit me at all!”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Well, the right sleeve is too long”
“So, raise your shoulder and it will be fine”. He raises his right shoulder.
“But the left sleeve is too short!”
“So, hold your arm like this and it will be fine!” He holds his left arm in that position
“But it’s too big in the chest!”
“So arch your back and stick out your chest and it will be fine”. He arches his back and sticks out his chest.
He pays.

He’s walking down the street: One shoulder raised, one arm crooked, back arched, chest out.
Another guy stops him and says “Who’s your tailor?”
“Why would you want my tailor?”
“Because if he can fit you, he can fit anyone!”