Finally figuring it out

Well, I have a question about the puzzle. Was it the one with the 6 white blocks with red stripes on it and you had to match it up to the picture?

That is the one I had TREMENDOUS difficulty with. The tester even quit timing me and I still couldn’t make the design. My verbal score was a 121 but my performance score was an 80. I told her I thought if I had been scored like that as a child, it would have been a sign of a learning disability.

Personally, although I tested positive for inattentive add, I think I am more in line with a nonverbal learning disorder. The psych scored me high for avoidant/passive personality disorder. I think the personality characteristics, with the low performance score, as well as the fact that I was an early reader point that way. However, as a stay at home mom, I think I do an ok job, just can’t help my kids with math any higher than fractions.

I wasn’t able to cut it as a restaurant manager but I did pretty well as a preschool teacher. Since I do have a college degree, even if I worked outside the home I would be among the underemployed. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

Keep up the search, I am sure you will find answers. Best wishes.
Amy

I hate that puzzle with the white and red stripe thingy

the tests were frustarating and you felt dumb and stupid doing them

bye
Dew

Audrey,

Wow can I relate. I have known for a very long time of my cognitive deficets but seeing them in black and white can really hit home.

Forgetting how to cry I would just get very frustrated and angry. I wised I could cry but insted I hold it in and increase my BP 50 points.

The blocks weren’t a problem because I use a strategy be creating a finished picture in my mind.

Without souding like a male chauvinsit pig which I must confess I am spatial reasoning is not in the female brain is diminised when compared to the male brain. In fact when several of the IQ tests were developed many of the spatial subtests were thrown out because women just couldn’t do them. It’s a evolutionary thing men/hunter vs women/gatherer. Me Tarzan you Jane. Well actually me Cheetah.

We all need to cut ourselves some slack and give those test/value judgements the creedence they deserve.

I guess I am feeling a bit philosophical because soon two of the worlds biggest mad men are going to take the first ssteps toward armegeddon.

Hi Amy,

The puzzle I had trouble with is the one with colored shapes on the left side, and similar shapes inside a box on the right. There were different combinations of them - round, square, red, yellow, large, small, single or in pairs. For each group of shapes on the left they want you to figure out the “rule” that applies to the ones inside the box to the right of that group. There were about 10 or 12 of them to do. The one you’re describing sounds like something from the WAIS and I think had trouble with that too, but that was a while back, I don’t remember it as clearly. I’m not sure what the numbers mean yet, haven’t discussed it with the testers that way.

Did you have any problems socially? That’s been another issue for me that I’m thinking now must be related. I hated parties when I was younger, have been figuring out how to deal with them over the last 10 years or so simply because I have to. I used to avoid them like the plague. It seems like there must be something people who don’t know me see that looks different and makes them uncomfortable, it’s been incredibly frustrating guessing at what it could be. Anyone I know well enough to ask either doesn’t see it or isn’t being honest with me.

I have a college degree too, in the fine arts, but that’s only the beginning of my really strange career path. I’m a graphic designer now and although I’m a good designer I’m just not fast enough and my work isn’t sophisticated enough for this highly competitive job market. It’s more and more of a problem as the economy gets worse. There are also problems with verbal communication, no matter what kind of work I do, which is one reason I thought there might be an auditory processing problem.

Thanks for the encouragement!

Audrey

Ball,

Yes it really does hit home. I just have to hang on because I’ll never know what’s going on without the tests, and not knowing is why I was powerless over it all this time. I wanted to leave in a big way but at the same time I knew it was time to stop running.

Crying is only one way to deal with the feelings. Facing this is in some ways like the grief I felt when my dad passed away. I cried a lot then too, but I also screamed a lot. As loud and hard as I could for as long as I could. Usually that was in my car at night, when no one else could see or hear me. I would often just pull over on my way home from work and let loose. It also helped to go to the gym, that kind of physical activity really helped a lot. When the feelings overwhealmed me they were uncontrollable, and exactly how I reacted depended on where I was at the time. I’m hoping those things will get me through this crisis too. Thanks for your comment - it made me think this through enough to remind me that I’m a survivor.

I develop strategies for these tests too, the issue for me is how much time I need to develop strategies for specific kinds of problems. Like Amy, I’ve had other tests where they stopped timing me just to see if I really couldn’t get it, or if I would just need more time to process and develop the strategy, and I always got it with more time.

The spatial thing is an interesting thought, I’m aware there are documented gender differences. The test I had trouble with though tested a particular kind of logic, not spatial problems. It was a mathematical kind of logic, deductive reasoning.

Audrey

Well, Audrey,
I don’t remember doing a test like you described but it sounds like one I wouldn’t be able to do well.

I am definitely in a bad way when it comes to the visual- spatial thing. You ought to see me trying to park my car!

I had/have lots of difficulty in social situations. I usually call it being really shy, but I get anxious about things like ladies socials, military balls or dinners. I always felt this way when I was younger too. I have to really psyc myself up to attend. I try to make sure there is at least one person there I actually know and I stick to them like glue. I just don’t have that knack for small talk, I don’t feel like I fit in, although I know that I have just as much in common as the other women and just as much education. That ol’ feeling of not being as good as them. Not dressing as stylish, on and on.

Let’s put it this way, when I started working at McD’s as an 18 yr old, I was told to take orders on the drive thru speaker. I was so nervous I had to run to the bathroom and throw up.

It has taken a lot of years to get up the ability to speak up, having kids helps some, you get that mother bear instinct that takes over. Especially if you have a special needs kid, which I do. I have had to learn to speak up to teachers ( a really hard one) and to speak up in school meetings that deal with my kid, mostly because there is no one else who will. Dad is a big help in boosting my confidence but he has depended on me to do the research on all this stuff.

My degree is in social science interdisciplinary. I call it a BA in BS.
It really isn’t specifically marketable. Probably the only thing it’s good for is teaching and I don’t really like the kids older than 5th grade.

Anyway, if you are interested in looking at the characteristics of nonverbal learning disability, there nldline.org as well as nldontheweb.org I think there is more but I can’t remember it all. You can look this up also on ldindepth up in the colored rectangles of this site.

Best wishes.
Amy

As far as grapic design goes the simplest and most elegant are the designs that work best.

I think some froms of LD put us at an advatage in graphic design. We will not create confusing overly contrived designs.

Amy,

A BA in BS! I like it…

Thanks for the suggestions. I checked out a couple of those articles about NVLD and now I’m totally confused. I guess that means I can’t diagnose myself huh? Damn. Some things fit, some don’t. I’ll keep reading…

You must have figured out some of the social stuff if you’re married. There’s another game of survival of the fittest. You’re really lucky to have found the right person. I’ve wanted a family for a long time but it looks like that may not be in the cards for me.

I was supposed to finish up the cognitive tests today, but the snowstorm here shut down the university where I’m having it done. Now the earliest appointment I’ll be able to get is next Monday (maybe later) and there may not be time for them to write the reports the neuropsych guy needs for that appointment. I just want to scream - I want this part over with so I can move on! It’s been dragging on for almost three months now.

Audrey

Ball,

You’re right, elegance and simplicity are highly valued in the marketing/adv world. Confusing and overly contrived solutions are just bad design.

Often the message we as designers need to communicate isn’t simple, but we have to make it appear that way. The most creative solutions integrate several different elements into a visual whole, and that requires good spatial awareness. Simple and clean with a clear message, those ads look like they were simple to create but they weren’t. It’s like ballet. Dancers are superb athletes, and the best ones make it look effortless…

Audrey

Amy,

Reading your response again, there’s more I want to tell you. Your “mother bear” instinct is not something all parents have, your child is very fortunate that you are willing to go to bat for him/her despite how hard it is for you. How wonderful to have a parent who is willing to face her own fears in order to do what’s best for her child! I had a mother who was outraged and deeply embarrassed by those parent teacher conferences in grade school. She would come home and scold me, tell me how ashamed she was of me that I wasn’t doing well, what an embarrassment I was to her. She even told me she thought I was doing it on purpose just to torture her. It was years before there was any discussion of how to make things better, by that time it had done some hefty damage to my self esteem that is still with me now in my forties.You should know that you are a wonderful mother, it sounds like you will do whatever it takes. What a gift that is for your child. Whatever his/her difficulties are or will be in the future, you are giving him/her the greatest possible advantage…

Audrey

The social thing is rough for some people. Some say that my irreverance is a result of TBI and that may be true but it has been both a help and a hinderence socially.

If I want to be I can be a chamelion and fit in anywhere but mostly I chose to be my true self and piss off people that I deem in need of being pissed off.

I think alot of people have social anxiety. Maybe you should try to develop a good line of BS be a good listener and smile alot and shake your head yes.

So much of the whole human social thing is such BS anyway. I find the whole thing amusing. Just relax with the whole thing. Nobody’s judging you….as far as you know. That’s humor.

Actually, most people socially have their own agendas and alot of people are uncomfortable so they have developed BS to cover for it.

One thing that is tough for me in social situations with a lot of people talking is cognitive overload. When that happena I have to clam up.

I’m far more comfortable than I was even 10 years ago, I had to learn how for my work, and that made it much easier for any social event. I’m very much myself now and I go to have a great time. Often I do, expecially if it’s a relatively small gathering and the acoustics are good. I have auditory trouble in many of these situations where there is a lot of ambient noise. I read lips but not too well, it helps a little.When I can’t understand what someone is saying to me at a party and I can’t read their lips, facial expression or body language enough to figure it out, I’ll ask them to repeat what they just said. People get reallly impatient with that, especially if I have to ask them more than once. Depending on the person, I will often pretend to understand them but if what they said requires a response, what I say next apparently makes them think I’m an idiot. Some of those idiots ( and they are) just walk away shaking their heads. No wonder I hated parties for so long. I don’t know if that’s the whole problem or not. I wish I had a fly on the wall who would tell me the truth…

… what I remember from the psych classes (taught by a man) was that they had to *add* visual-spatial tests because the females kept scoring so much higher!

At any rate, in general, men tend to do better than women. However, that doesn’t matter a hill of beans if you’re a guy that has trouble in that department — and if you’re a female type that is excellent there, you may have a tough time proving for the millionth time that yes, you can so fly that helicopter :-) (There are extremely few female helicopter pilots.)

I approached those tests knowing that you keep going until it gets too hard — so no matter *how* smart you are (unless you’re profoundly gifted… in every area…) you’re going to end up being stumped at some point, and for all you know you got further than most average bears.
And there were, still, tests I barely got off the ground with and I knew it… but I also know those are tests for how you do a certain kind of puzzle, not a judgment of whether you’re worth taking up space on the earth.

NLD is a pretty general term — it’s sort of like “skin disorder.” There are lots of different versions and varieties of it. So some people just have trouble with the social stuff, or just have trouble with the visual-spatial stuff, or just have trouble with some kinds of reasoning.
Bet you’re like me and don’t really like making phone calls either (as in, I *LOVE* e-mail!)

I am finally learning that I need to accept where I’m, regarding my own learning disabilities. I have learning disabilities in Math& Reading. I also have ADD. These people who treat you as though you’re stupid, sad to say that they don’t realize how he or she is treating you. Hopefully, one day he or she will be able to and apologize. We are all going thru a process of finding out about us, and way we are the way we are. That’s good that you are getting these tests done. Hang In There. Are you working right now? I was going to try to get on disability, but I have been struggling a lot financially. I would better off trying to work again. Gotta go. You are welcome to e-mail me if you need to. Take Care

I know what you mean Iam tring to go back to school now for nursing and I am scared to death ,so I have started to get helpI know at first I felt people would think a mother of 2 one is AB honor roll student and another who shows no real signs of any LD would be crazy to go for something like this or I really am not interested in my chosen profession and thats not so if you have any tips that can help please email me back thanks edith.

Hello Ladies,
Now I am feeling even more frustrated. At least some of you were able to get through college. I had dreams of being a teaching poet, at college level. Trouble was I had terrible time with abstract math, foreign language, time management, organizational skills, poor memory, plus undiagnosed LDs. Also coping with ADD. I am one, frustrated human being. My interests far exceed my capabilities, and I have an interest in just about everything, regardless of my limitations. Creative writing helped me in a number of ways.

I married someone, also with ADD and learning disabilities. Maybe not the best thing to do, but we certainly understood each other, though we had no idea of the implications or knowledge of the problems we faced when we met. Socially, I’m still pretty inept. Only recently, have I come to understand the significance of body language. Duh, laughing at myself for missing this vital clue to what others are thinking or how they’re reacting to me. I have a very hard time staying with a verbal conversation, and I know I lack a great deal in communicating skills. Stuff’s in my head, but it doesn’t come out easily at all. I am far better able to express myself through writing, though it is a constant hassle to proof-read myself. And sometimes even writing becomes a hassle.

Y’all care to start a smallish email group? It could be fun. It would give us a chance to talk more without it being so public. Yes, I’m a night owl, but only because of procrastination.
Wren

Edith,

I hope you don’t take this wrong but I can tell you this. You would not want somone with my disabilities entering information on a medical chart or dispensing medication to patients.

You would want me flying the plane you were on.

Would the symptoms of your LD present a danger to patients?

Wow, your story made me cry. I as well, am in my forties and have experienced everything you talked about. I am out of work right now and in the process of taking a “Title Insurance” course for a sales position I very much want. I start school on April 4th for 7 days. I must pass a test in order to get licensed. I can’t sell without this license, so I feel like everything is on the line.

I went on the internet this morning researching schools in my area who might be able to help teach me to study and help me pass this test. I found nothing. I read that this AD does not go away, nor did I think it did.

How did you get help? I don’t know where to try and get help. I seem to be the only one I know with this thing. Maybe my little brother too.

Please help me. I’m I stuck for the rest of my life?

signed

AD or ADD
in New Jersey