What Are Nonverbal Learning Disabilities?
by Patti Brace
Nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) are less well known than language-based learning
disabilities such as dyslexia.
Nonverbal learning disabilities often go undiagnosed because reading ability tends to be regarded as the chief indicator of
academic well-being by most public school systems. Because it has a pronounced effect on social interaction, as well as
academic performance, nonverbal learning disabilities present a unique challenge to parents, teachers and adult consumers.
When people with nonverbal learning disabilities are assessed, typically, their performance IQ is significantly lower than their
verbal IQ, because of visual-spatial weaknesses.
Young Children
Young NLD children tend to stray from home or groups and get lost easily. They often spill things at mealtime because of
problems with motor coordination and have trouble dressing themselves for the same reason. Problems with spatial skills
appear in a weak understanding of nonverbal information (e.g. pictures, cartoons, passage of time) and nonverbal tasks like
puzzles.
Many children with NLD use words in an adult fashion and learn to read before school age because of their auditory strengths.
Thus, they often try to gain information about the world around them by asking endless questions of adults rather than by
exploring on their own. The inaccuracy of their visual perception, physical awkwardness and difficulty integrating information in
space and time make it harder for them to make sense of the physical world. This compensation can compound the problem,
however, for the less the child engages in physical exploration, the less she/he learns about relationships between objects in
space.
Academic Issues
Students with NLD generally appear to possess above-average cognitive skills because of their verbal strengths, but often
show academic difficulties as they reach secondary levels.
Spatial and coordination problems make printing and writing, learning math, telling time,
reading and colouring maps and keeping one’s place on the page difficult from early grades. By secondary school more complex verbal language is based on
nonverbal processes like spatial relationships (in science, for example), logical ordering, and sequencing (both skills necessary
for writing essays.) This can cause problems in subject areas other than math. For example, students often experience
difficulties with sense of time, arranging written material on a page, making change, and sewing and typing, all of which demand
good spatial awareness.
Throughout the school years, children with NLD are often inattentive and poorly organized because they have trouble
integrating and interpreting incoming information. They tend to pay attention to each detail as it comes in, rather than combining
them into more meaningful wholes. The effort quickly leads to information overload, with which these students will often cope
by clinging to familiar habits and routines that help them to structure their world. Sometimes this means of coping appears as
misbehaviour.
In later secondary and post-secondary education, information is frequently
presented in lecture form. For students with NLD, problems arise because they have to integrate information they hear with the act of writing, already difficult
because writing is often awkward and slow. In addition, students who attend equally to individual details as they appear have enormous difficulty
separating important from unimportant information.
Teachers can support students with NLD by outlining material to be covered, using overheads containing central points while
lecturing, providing clear schedules of the day's events, breaking down complex tasks into smaller, sequenced pieces, using
discussion rather than lectures to develop and integrate ideas, and using students' strengths in rote learning to help them develop
habits and routines to organize themselves and their work.
Social and Emotional Issues
Possibly the biggest area of concern for children and adults with NLD is social skills. One
result of having trouble processing nonverbal and spatial information is missing or misinterpreting subtle social cues like facial expressions, gestures and tones of
voice. For example, a phrase like "nice going" means something different when you've just dropped a ball or tripped over a
skipping rope (again) than when you've gotten a perfect score on a spelling test. Confusing the two can spell "disaster" on the
playground.
Unlike a student who has difficulty reading but does well with social and sports activities, students with NLD are affected in all
areas. This can lead to social isolation which children will sometimes try to alleviate by interacting only with adults, who are
more appreciative of their verbal strengths and less concerned about physical awkwardness or violations of social conventions.
However, because children with NLD are highly verbal, parents and teachers tend to attribute their academic and social failure
to laziness or poor character. This can lead to emotional problems like depression and anxiety that may be expressed in
physical ways (e.g. nail and cuticle biting, headaches, stomach problems, phobias).
Parents and teachers can help children with NLD learn more effective social skills by talking about social rules and playing
games in which children guess the feelings that go with facial expressions and tones of voice, and figure out appropriate
responses. Friends and spouses of adults with NLD can help by pointing out social rules and articulating the information often
carried by a look or a gesture.
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© 1998 Patti Brace. All rights
reserved.
This article first appeared in LDA of Kingston Newsletter, Winter 1998,
and is posted here with the permission of Learning
Disabilities Association of Ontario, on behalf of the author.
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