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!”

More than this, though, for many disabled people the world is hard. In fact, that is almost the definition of a disability: A disabled person (LD or physical disability) is unable to do easily what normal people can do easily. He or she may be unable to do it at all; or it may simply require more effort. Both are exhausting, emotionally. A safe place is one where this hardness is minimized, as well.

The exact nature of safety will vary from person to person as well; for a blind person, safety would perhaps concentrate on the physical nature of the space, and the sameness of the placement of physical objects. If a blind person knows exactly where things are, then he or she can navigate that space more comfortably and with less effort, and with much less risk of tripping, banging or breaking. For some LD people, safety will involve a lack of noise. For others, it will involve minimal visual distractions. But for all, it will involve emotional safety.

What can a safe place be?

For some, it can be home. For a child, if the parents set up the home so that it is safe, and are able to be emotionally safe for their child, then the home can be a safe place. But this requires a special set of abilities and efforts on the part of the parents. If there are other children in the family, that can make it harder, as parents have to devote time to all their children (and to themselves, as well!). No parents are superhuman; and some are, themselves, troubled with issues that make it hard for them to provide safety to others.

Adults can sometimes set up their own homes as safe places.

If the entire home cannot be made safe, it may be possible to make one portion of it a safe place.

However, some parents may be unable, for various reasons, to make any part of the home really safe. In this case, it may be necessary to find some alternative place. This can take a variety of forms. It could be a therapist’s office; it could be a relative’s home, or the home of a close friend of the family, or of the child. There are lots of possibilities.

Or a safe place could be something else entirely, depending on what disability is involved. It could involve:

• A particular kind of lighting
• Neatness
• A place where you provide your own food
• Control of position (that is, whether you are standing or sitting or lying down, and in what particular position)
• Quiet
• Noise
• Available care and communication

But without a safe place, the person must be constantly on guard against all the many dangers of the world. That’s a horrible way to grow up and a horrible way to live; it stultifies and damages and prevents growth.

Some dissimilarities between me and many autistic people:
Many autistic people (not all) like animals. Most notably, Temple Grandin really likes animals. I don’t like animals. I don’t get them. When I’m dealing with people, I deal better with purely verbal information – words, whether written or spoken. And, except possibly for dolphins and some highly trained apes, animals don’t talk. Certainly none of them speak English. People who get along with animals rely on nonverbal cues, just the sort of thing I’m bad at. Many people (NT or autistic or whatever) get a lot of pleasure out of stroking a dog or cat. I don’t. I don’t hate doing it, but it doesn’t give me joy.

Many autistic people (not all) think in pictures. Indeed, Temple Grandin has a book called “Thinking in Pictures”. I do NOT think in pictures. Not at all. Not nearly as much as a typical NT (that’s neurotypical, the acronym for people who think they don’t need one). I think in words and sometimes in symbols. Unlike many people who are not visual, I am good at math (I’m a statistician), but I relate much better to algebra than to geometry, and in calculus, I liked the formal stuff better than the applications; when I was learning arithmetic I didn’t memorize stuff, I made up tricks; and the visual explanation of multiplication did nothing for me – I thought of it as repeated addition.

Many autistic people are good at certain types of routine physical tasks – things like spinning a top, or sometimes spinning themselves. I am not good at any of this.

Of course, in some ways, that makes me atypical for NLD as well as for autism. I’m typical of me. The only diagnosis that fits me perfectly is “Peter”.

Well, doodling is fairly clear: I look at paper and make little drawings. They aren’t good, I’m a terrible artist and have problems with pen control, but that’s not the issue: It’s a way for me to look away from the person talking without being rude. They think I am taking notes, which is permissible in a lecture or meeting. Doodling seems to help quite a few people. A friend of mine sent me a TED talk on doodling. Doodling in a one-on-one conversation is considered rude, though.

Arguing is also useful, again, especially in a lecture or meeting. One key is to do it to yourself (it’s a key that I often lose … but it’s a key). When I listen to someone speak, I try to figure out why they are wrong, or, at least, what counter-arguments could be made. This forces me to pay attention to the key things the person is saying. How could I refute what I am not paying attention to? Arguing also helps me remember the key points at a later date. If I try to take notes, though, I lose the thread of what the person is saying. Sometimes I will write down a word or a sentence here or there, and, if it’s the sort of lecture where formulas get written on a board, I can often copy them – but formulas are usually in a textbook, too, and getting a formula a little bit wrong can be worse than not getting it at all. Sometimes I will argue out loud with a person – this can be tricky. But arguing in my own head isn’t dangerous at all.

Of course, these are methods that work for me. They may or may not work for you.

I went back to school many times: preschool, kindergarten, 1st through 11th grade (I skipped 12th), 4 years of college, 2 years on my master’s and 3 years of classes on my PhD (when I was working on the dissertation there was no summer break). That makes 23 back to schools! Sheesh. All that for a guy who wasn’t supposed to ever go to college.

But when people talk about “back to school” I think they usually mean grades 1-12.

Many kids dread going back to school. For a lot of years (6th grade through 11th) so did I. But perhaps my reasons were different. I dreaded it because school had students. There were a few teachers I really didn’t like, but most of them I could deal with. And I liked learning stuff. And I never had academic problems. But those other students!

I think a lot has changed in the decades since I was that age; schools are more aware (but still not aware enough) of bullying and teasing and there are programs to deal with those things, although obviously they aren’t effective enough. In my day, at least in my schools, there was nothing. And I got teased and bullied a lot.

What can parents, teachers and others do about this? I’m not really sure. But anything that reduces bullying is good. And if you have things you can recommend, well, that’s what comments on a blog are for!

Me and my siblings

I’m learning disabled. It even says so on my blog, which I host at www.IAmLearningDisabled.com. Well, I’m not FORMALLY diagnosed with LD. That’s ’cause I’m 51. MY diagnosis is “minimal brain dysfunction”! Woo! Sorta makes you glad your kids are young, huh? Your kids just have autism or Aspergers or whatnot. *I*’ve got a dysfunctional brain! (At least it’s minimal!) The LD that fits me best is probably Nonverbal Learning Disability. But I note that (per the book) people with NLD have no sense of humor. We are ESPECIALLY bad at things like sarcasm which depend on tone of voice. Hehehe.

Yeah, life for us LD people was even worse 40 years ago and more. MBD was my FORMAL diagnosis. Informal diagnosis were things like “lazy”, “crazy” and “stupid” (from adults) or “Spazzo”, “retard” and such (from kids).
But some things made it easier. And some NON-things made it easier too. Two of the non-things that made it easier for me were my brother and sister. I got lucky. One of the ways I got lucky is that they think THEY got lucky. Not a lot of people would have thought of having me as a sibling as luck.

My sister (technically, my half-sister, but we have an unhyphenated relationship) was 12 when I was born. She was an enormously competent 12 year old. So much so that our mother trusted her to take care of me. Once, when I was a baby, she took me to the park and was pushing me in a swing. A woman came up to her and said “WHAT are you DOING with that BABY?!?” and my sister turned to her and said “that baby is my brother, and I am ENTERTAINING him”. (And I can easily see her doing this).

18 months after I was born, my brother came along. I was an odd-looking, skinny, cranky, strange acting child. My brother was a blue-eyed, blond-haired chubby cheeked cutie. So, everyone oohed and aahed even more over the new baby than usual. My sister decided she was having none of that! No! *I* was the one. Until a couple months when she told our parents that she couldn’t help liking our brother because “he makes himself so charming”. But, nevertheless, I’ve always been closer to my sister than my brother has.

So, there I am, this messed up little baby with this adorable brother. Recipe for …. A GREAT RELATIONSHIP. It’s weird how these things work out sometimes. My brother and I shared a room until I was about 15. For most of that time, it was by choice. In the apartment where we spent our tweens and teens, there were two rooms for us. But, until I was 15, we shared one as a bedroom and used the other for other stuff. And, even after I decided I wanted my own room, we did a lot together. I helped him with his homework (yeah, well, my dysfunctional brain is good at some stuff, like math and writing). He provided relationships. Because I had no friends from 6th to 11th grades. None. I think I had one date (and that was a disaster) and I don’t recall any “play dates”. But my brother had tons of friends. He loved being around people. And people loved being around him, too. He made himself charming. And I got to share.

Meanwhile, my sister had gone off to college (but she came home some) and then got married. She lived for a little while in Lawrence, Kansas, but for most of the time she lived in Chicago. I used to go visit. A lot. Several times a year. Because it was just a lot easier being in her house than being in my parents’ house. How many people go to Chicago for Christmas vacation?

So, even though for a lot of kids in the autism ballpark, sibling relationships are really hard, for me they were good. Why? Well, Calvin Trillin was once asked the secret to his long, happy marriage. He said “I walked into the right party”. That’s how I feel. I got lucky. That’s not much help to others, I guess. I don’t know how my brother and sister decided to put up with me. But I’m really glad they did.