Our 13-year-old daughter has recently been diagnosed with non-verbal learning disorder, and we’re now thinking of following up with some testing of her social perceptions as this has long seemed to be an issue for her (she seems a little “off” socially, seems to stand out to other children when she’s in group situations, and has never had a friend). What sort of test would we need for info on social pragmatics, and what sort of expert would administer it?
We are currently home schooling her and I need to get some objective information on where I need to start. We went to the Christmas Eve service last night and she was in a bad mood and so cried all through it; she does this whenever she is stressed and seems unable to distinguish between public and private situations. She’s a sweet girl but she has trouble making those connections somehow, and when she’s in group situations her behavior turns off the other kids (she talks too loudly, or says something just a little “off” [not mean, just odd — such as she’ll say “no problem” when someone says she looks nice today]). It’s hard to get her exposed to social situations because she has gross and fine motor problems (not good at sports) and her processing, especially non-verbal, is extremely slow (she can’t think on her feet so when the other kids run off to do something, she hesitates and is lost). I just don’t know what to do.
Sandy
the names of the tests got deleted in cyber space
The test of Pragmatic Language and the Adolescent Test of Problem solving. I am using a different computer and keyboard than I usually use. Don’t know what happened to my prior post in the middle…:-D
Re: social issues?
Some people (Tony Attwood for one) say that NVLD is another way of saying Asperger’s. I am not sure, but then I have not studied Asperger’s (or NVLD) to the extent that I have full-blown autism.
Regardless, you might want to check out Social Stories (Carol Gray is one author) to see if they can help your child become a little more connected. They come in a wide variety of topics that cover nearly all social occurances. Some can be had from online (free and pay), others you might be able to get from your library. You might also inquire with the schools, since they are supposed to share texts and other materials with homeschoolers in most states.
I need to ask, does your daughter seem particularly stressed because she doesn’t mesh well with peers? If not, or if she is just as content to be on her own it may make her cooperation with you less than what you will want. And if she is indeed truly Aspie, she may be better off in the long run worrying less about become “one of them” than focusing on finding her own space in society and becoming comfortable there.
Good luck to you and please keep us posted how things go!
Re: social issues?
Thanks, Patti! Regarding the Aspie issue, it was interesting that that was the route I used to try to pin down more about what was going on with our daughter. She hadn’t been tested yet, but we knew there were odd things going on (the school officials told us they didn’t know what to do because they had never worked with a child like ours…doubtful — we figure they’ve been overlooking them and they are falling through the cracks).
Anyway, after we pulled her out of school I started looking online for some of the symptoms we were seeing and though she didn’t have all the symptoms of Asperger’s, some of the strategies used for these kids seem to address some of her needs. She seemed similar in some ways, only not as extreme (we know two other kids with Asperger’s). In our case at least, I think the NVLD diagnosis is basically on the same spectrum but not as severe as Asperger’s or Autism might be.
Our daughter is feeling left out and hurt that her strategies don’t work in social situations, and we would like to give her some tools that would allow her to explore her needs and what she can do. It’s not so much trying to make her like everyone else (she’s not like everyone else in a lot of other ways too! :) and she enjoys that) as it is just trying to help her acquire some skills so she can have the acquaintanceships and friendships that she might like to have as she gets older and starts separating more from us.
Sandy
Re: social issues?
There is a psychologist practice in a city near us that runs social skills groups for children like your daughter. You might want to take a look just to see if something like that exists in your area.
http://www.solutionsofhky.com/specialized2.htm#friendbuilders
I think you could go for five different evaluations and some might call it NVLD and some might call it Asperger’s. We have a friend who is a psychologist and his daughter was not labeled with Asperger’s until she was about 18. I think there is difficulty with exactly where to place some kids on the spectrum.
Janis
Re: social issues?
Thanks — I’ll check out the site. At least it will maybe give me an idea of the sort of thing I’m looking for. And I think you may be right about the diagnoses…as for us, well, as long as we get her what she needs, we’ll have to try not to worry too much about the label. We’ve got some good information about strengths and weaknesses and will have to go from there. Some days it seems like we’ll never make it! Today we have a sick pet, a rat, and we are all struggling to survive her meltdowns over it. We’re just talking and talking and talking about the illness, about death, etc., and hopefully it will sink in at some point. Whew.
Sandy
Re: social issues?
sandellie4
I have to agree with Janis regarding the social skills group. My now 8 year old has been involved in social skills group since he was 4. It’s a great place for kids with similar issues to get to know each other, feel safe, and learn appropriate responses, reciprocating in play and conversation, and many other skills they may be deficient in.
Your daughter might find someone she connects with also, for outside activities (movies, phone conversations etc..)
The class should be conducted by an experienced therapist. We also see a Speech Pathologist and work with another child and therapist at the same time. Pragmatics.
Good Luck
taximom
good luck
NVLD children can be extremely fragile - their perception of things is a very different one. You can do more testing but if it were my daughter, I’d read up on NVLD as much as I could and work through this that way. I’ve taught several NVLD girls and watched their social struggles.
Good luck.
get him to make a referrral to a speech and language pathologist thorugh your insurance. I am a speech pathologist and I do assessments on middle schoolers quite frequently who have pragmatic language issues. Pragmatics is the term for social language. There is actually a test called the Testis a good one to use to help figure out where a child is having pragmatic language problems. There are a lot of products through Super Duper that you can use to help you teach her pragmatic language as part of her homeschooling curriculum. Basically that is what I would do with a child who has pragmatic language issues, discuss social stories and ways to correctly figure out how to solve problems socially and role play with them to help them learn strategies to use.