NLD

Hi. I also have a 10 year old with NLD. I just picked up a book about how to help an nld child at home. Will report back when I am done the book. My own opinion is that the NLD can not be discounted. Behavior management is an important technique and can be very helpful in some circumstances but the basic issues with these kids, especially socially, can not be “fixed” with behavior management alone. They need alternative strategies and need active teaching to interpret the social information. I know my kid often misinterprets what people say or takes them too literally. For example, when a kid says something like “you’re stupid”, he takes it very literally and considers it an attack on his person. I spend quite a bit of time explaining how people often say things they don’t mean or how kids are kids and say stupid things. I think people often don’t understand NLD and don’t know how to help especially if they are very verbal. My kids psych often discounts his nld because he has other issues as well. I think they all interrelate and the child needs to be looked at and treated as a whole, not just one aspect of the problem. Hope this helps.

Jean

Our experience has been that it is absolutely ESSENTIAL to deal with the NLD issues with an NLD kid if you want to have any chance to improve behavior. Before we knew about NLD, our son was on a “behavior mod” plan at school to try to get him to get more work done. All that happened was that he accepted the fact that he would never get to go to recess or have computer time again. It did _nothing_ to get him to “work harder” or “stop fooling around” or “pay attention”. And the longer we went without finding out what his real problem was and addressing it, the more he started acting out. It was mostly at home, not at school, but I am positive that it was only a matter of time before things boiled over at school too.

Once his NLD issues were being addressed directly, he was like a completely different kid. All of a sudden, he didn’t NEED a “behavior mod plan.” What he needed was for people to understand WHY he did what he did, and if the behavior was inappropriate, TELL him what a better choice would be. He would never have figured out what he should have done by himself, no matter what the consequences.

A child can’t possibly modify behavior unless they first know what they did wrong, and second, know of another option. With our NLD kids, we have to point these things out to them all along the way. They just don’t “get it” on their own. Then they get really angry or frustrated and fly off the handle when they find that they are getting in trouble without a clue what they did wrong.

Karen

My son is 9 years old and has NLD. His biggest behavior problem is when he’s playing a game - any kind of game, board game, video game, basketball, anything- and if the other side gets a point he thinks he is going to lose and he loses his temper. He even will have a temper tantrum. We’ve tried to calmly explain to him why he shouldn’t act this way and that it doesn’t matter who wins and just have fun playing. That doesn’t work. We try taking the game away or putting him intime-out. Nothing seems to really work. This only happens at home. No problem at school. Any suggestions?

He gets frustrated extremely easily at everything. No patience.

Karen, did you have your son see a psych to improve his behavior?

Thanks!

Sue-
My son is okay with losing at games - in fact he often assumes that he
ll lose - and then his self-esteem goes down the tubes. We have more of an issue when he thinks things are “unfair” - and he has such a strict view of things “unfair.” I’ve learned that this is pretty common with all LD kids - not just NLD. But, he does have temper tantrums - but with us it’s in school and not at home! It’s a good thing that I’m in education - I’ve taught kids who are impossible to have in class and yet the parents would tell me that their “angel” couldn’t possibly be trouble. Well - my son is one of those kids. I think that at home we tend to compensate more and are able to work with him. At school there are too many ways for him to become frustrated - even with a faculty that tries very hard to work with us!

I just found this bulletin board - it’s good to have a chance to talk to others who”get it.”

-Amy

Karen-

Thanks for re-confirming my gut instinct. I was very pleased with the practice - as they picked up on the NLD to begin with - but then they didn’t seem to be interested in working with it in mind re:behavior - they only gave us some suggestions for academic issues.

One of the “big guys” in LD issues is nearby at Chapel Hill - Mel Levine. We’re going to try and get a consultation and see if his office can direct us to someone who is more on the ball with these issues.

I have my son at a theater camp a few summers ago and found myself telling this young theater’ed grad student to forget everything they told her about “good teaching” - all the kenisthetic (sp?), hands on techniques - and just tell my son what was needed!

Again, thanks for responding - I’ll be lurking on this board a bit - I need to hear from others who are helping their kids.

-Amy

Jean-

Thanks for responding - my son’s diagnosis was a relief of sorts - I always felt like I had to interpret signals for him - like to say good morning to someone when they said good morning to him! He has had trouble with new groups of kids as he often will misinterpret their overtures as hostile. He did, however do wonderfully at a sleep-away camp last summer (although it was after a rather rocky first day or two).

Let me know about the book. When he was first diagnosed, my husband and I sent away for a book by a woman who’s is one of the guru’s on the subject - but we been pretty negligent about keeping up with things - I guess hoping that he would “mature” out of some of it with constant work on our part. He’s doing well in some areas - but middle school does loom large in my mind!

It’s good to talk to others about all of this - my friends, while well-meaning, don’t really “get it.”

-Amy

One of the points that people knowledgeable about NLD make over and over again is the need for verbal scripts that kids can default to in situations like this. Then there needs to be rehearsal so the script can become automatic. This makes some sense when you think about the fact that more than 70% of our communication is non verbal- including appropriate responses to frustration etc. My guess is that the more severe the NLD the more need there would be to practice how to behave when you are winning or losing- it would be rather like the use of social stories with students on the autism spectrum who have similar issues with being able to notice and interpret nonverbal cues. It is a fascinating area for an educator- and must be extraordinarily frustrating for a parent.

Robin

If you just found this BB, also check out nldline.com and nldontheweb.org both sites also have BBs.

Re: group therapy (aka “social skills”) these have really helped my NLD daughter when the NLD was clearly understood by facilitator (one social worker, one psychologist, now a psychiatrist — all useful). The problem with behavior management for our kids, in addition to what was noted in other posts, is that they frequently do not understand cause and effect. So they truly don’t understand why a certain behavior causes people around them to react in a certain way. A lot of this can be taught, with the caveat that NLD kids also can have great difficulty generalizing from one situation to another. So the “social skill” practiced in the group in the shrink’s office will not necessarily be remembered or accessed in the moment of recess or play with other kids.

This is why it is SO ESSENTIAL to have everyone who relates to our kids ON THE SAME PAGE. We have found it incredibly useful to keep everyone in the loop - make sure the teachers and other therapists know what social skills need reinforcement, make sure other parents know how to help our kid when she is at their house, etc. So our daughter gets consistent reinforcement of skills in different places. (Doesn’t always happen this way of course, but that’s the goal….).

Sorry it’s taken me a while to answer… Christmas got in the way!

My son has never been much of a “behavior problem”. When we first had the Neuropsych eval done, and I discussed a few of the behavior issues that I did see cropping up, the Neuropsychologist dismissed them as “fallout” as a result of my son’s NLD needs not being properly addressed. In retrospect, I think she was right. As soon as he was on an ed plan that supported him properly, ALL the school related behavior issues disappeared as if a light switch had been thrown.

He does have some mild social issues, and I know that many NLD children have more. But my understanding is that insight-style psych therapy is either unsuccessful or even counter-productive with most NLD kids. They need direct teaching of pragmatics with lots of rote role playing and practice.

Even though my son’s social problems are subtle at this point, (he is more likely to be victimized by more saavy kids than to be a “problem” himself) we enrolled him in a gym-based social skills program where he gets social skills practice in real-life situations in the presence of counsellors who are all mental health professionals. He loves it, and gets to work on his motor and visual/motor issues right along with the social stuff in a supportive, cooperative environment.

They spend the last 15 minutes of each session in the counsellor’s office playing a quite-time game, either at the desk or on the computer, where they need to take turns and work on social skills in a less physical setting, as well as working on transitioning from one activity to another.

I feel very, very lucky that we have a program like this so close to us. It’s half an hour away, and I have to pick him up right from school to get there. But there are people who come from much farther away than we do because of the quality of the program.

Karen

My son also has a very, very hard time accepting that life is not always completely “fair”. (and his view of “fair” isn’t always the same as someone else’s!) If he gets really, really, upset about something, or seems to be really digging his heels in on an issue, if you can trace it abck to the root, it is almost always a case where he feels an injustice has been done. Sometimes it’s to himself, but he can become just as upset if he feels that someone else has been treated unfairly.

In a way, I think this is a very GOOD quality. It’s just one that we work on molding, tempering and shaping. We try to help him understand that life ISN’T always fair, no matter how much we might wish otherwise. We try to help him choose appropriate ways of expressing his feelings or even fixing a perceived injustice. I certainly don’t want to diminish his strong (and often accurate)sense of right and wrong… I just want to help him learn to temper his reaction to it.

Karen

I don’t think they are wrong to focus first on the academic issues, because, as I mentioned, a lot of seeming “behavior” issues can just go away once the stress level is lowered. Also, that _is_ the area of expertise for most neuropsychologists. OTOH, each NLD child is an individual, and I certainly know some NLD children who have other emotional issues that need seriously to be addressed at the same time the NLD issues are being addressed.

Parents are pretty good at knowing what their kids need. If you feel that it’s an urgent issue for your child, by all means delve further into it. From what I’ve heard, Mel Levine should be a good person to point you in the right direction!

Good luck, and keep us posted!

Karen

What is NLD?

Nonverbal learning disability. A learning disability that affects the ability to learn and process nonverbal skills, behavior, etc.

Kathy G.

Carly wrote:
>
> What is NLD?

Non-verbal Learning Disability. (or “Disorder” depending on the author) There are some articles about NLD on this site, and more on the other web sites mentioned in this thread. In a nutshell, individuals with NLD have neurological deficits in a number of areas including fine and gross motor, visual spatial and inferential comprehension. They have trouble with problem solving and higher order reasoning. They do not “see” or process non-verbal cues in their environment, which is where the name of the disability comes from.

They are usually verbally precocious, and learn best by talking and listening. They are often early a voracious readers, but have problems with comprehension when the subject matter becomes more complex. They do NOT learn well by watching someone else do a task. They often have fairly severe social problems based on their inability to process the non-verbal social cues of others. They often have very good memory skills, which can be used to learn compensating strategies for many of their weaknesses. A large split between verbal IQ scores and performance IQ scores (with the VIQ higher) is a hallmark of NLD, although not all individuals show a marked split, and this split by itself does not necessarily prove that someone has NLD. There is a large but incomplete overlap between NLD and Asperger’s Syndrome. There is quite a bit of variation in the expresion of deficits in individuals with NLD… for instance, some have severe visual-spatial difficulties, and less trouble socially, while others will show the reverse. There are usually at least subtle signs of difficulty in all of these areas, though.

Karen

Thanks. I will f/u with the website in the thread.
Carly

I heard Mel Levine speak in the Philadelphia area a few years ago. He was here to lead a one-day workshop for educators. He was very conforting because i realized I was alone, however to implement things that help my son have been very difficult to do.