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Hi, Catnip.

Interesting thread.

I have a minor LD and one of my children is serverly LD. I don’t expereince what you are talking about but my child sure does. He gets exhausted in the malls this time of year.

ME

Catnip,

There is a part of the brain that does “executive” stuff or to use a term I’m more comfortable with, planning.

Dealing with a walking obstacle course is about motor planning. Doing that while window shopping and conversing is something that not everyone can do.

Here’s an informal experiment you might run on yourself.

Go to the mall alone and walk in the crowd. Do not look in windows or talk or think about anythig except doging people.

Does that help? Have you tried it?

I’m thinking this relates in some way to the idea that most people who listen to the radio or to music on tape or CD in the car turn the sound off when faced with fast city driving in dense traffic or rout-finding in unfamiliar territory. I go further telling my wife and anyone else in the car to keep conversation quieter so I can concentrate.

Anyway, I would suggest that if you haven’t, you try some informal experimentation on yourself (no brain surgery please) and see if you can form a theory.

Then there’s all the research on coordination and sensory integration. You might try googling “sensory integration” and see what you come up with.

Hi Catnip,

I have NLD, which involves visual spatial weaknesses and this is a definite problem of mine. Interestingly, when I focus on not having tunnel vision and making myself look around, I do better at not running into someone. But that is easier said than done.

Richard has a point about motor planning. I also think if I can plan ahead of time, which way I am going to go, that works. But sometimes, I don’t even do that correctly.

I hate crowds by the way, especially, when I am coming home on the public transporation system. It takes a tremendous amount of willpower not to literally push people out of the day. I get sensory overload big time.

PT

Walking in the mall, or other crowded place - I feel like I am in everyone’s way, or do not have very good refined peripheral sense.
EX: If I am walking in a straight line, and another person is coming toward me in the same straight line, I see them, but do not pick up the cue that one of us has to move aside so I STOP. I also get this sometimes when I am coming around a corner, and almost run someone down who is coming towards the same corner and I do not see them. This happens often enough (usually daily) to cause me much frustration and grumpiness.
It gets worse when it is crowded, to the point where it feels like I am spending more mental energy “threading the needle” thru a crowd, than I am enjoying the surroundings. :x
I am betting normal people do not experience this type of frustration.
Any comments or tips on how to deal would be welcome.

Sincerely,
Catnip[/quote]

This is a very interesting thread for me.

As I’ve gotten older (I’m 52 now) I’ve become much more self-conscious and uncoordinated getting on and off escalators and moving walkways at airports. I used to not think about it; now I think about it.

Also, when doing collision avoidance on the sidewalk I’m finding that I lock up more than I used to: if me and the other person go back and forth the same way instead of taking the necessary cues and getting out of the way I freeze.

I know this is not what’s being discussed here but I think it’s on the same continuum.

For me, this is a motor planning and confidence / self-counsciousness issue.

I highly recommend googling “sensory integration” it’s the motherload for discussion of these kinds of issues. Sensory integration as a topic has a bad rap in the LD world in that it’s been abused like “vision therapy” and the like but I’m sure there’s something to it.

Then there are ballance issues and inner ear issues that would be useful to look at.

This is a most fascinating topic, keep the discussion going, I’m loving thinking about it.

I happen to be at a very very large trade show in London, UK at the moment and as I type this (in the AlphaSmart booth at the show) I’m watching people walk around bumping into each other, doing collision avoidance, etc.

Some people here are better at this than others. Some people can pre-think what the 4 people in front of them are about to do and quickly squeeze through (like a motorcycle in heavy traffic) and some really don’t seem to be able to do that.

It would be interesting to set up an experiment with traffic cones or cardboard people who were not moving and then substitute “real” people standing still and then have them move just a bit.

I guess my question is: can one learn, through training, how to better navigate these situations, or, is this perceptual thing a constant?

I’d like to think one could do some self-therapy and improve one’s lot (that’s my British accent for this post).

I have had an experience, at my university, that “Groups/Clubs”
put signs on the doors to Academic Buildings. That is an
obstacle. Also, sometimes people (smokers usually) block the
door or clog the sidewalk, and I have to negotiate through them.
I have been known to take down the signs on the doors, and to
relocate them to windows besides/adjacent to the doors.
This is a safety / social skill issue for me.

Best regards,
/signed/ Joe Tag

http://www.kean.edu/~cahss

I think you could. I also have difficulties with negotiating groups of people. I”ve learned to plot the path of least resistance, and sometimes just resign myself to lots of nudges (fanny packs instead of purses help in this regard as well as it being harder to leave them behind if they’re on your behind) for the next hundred yards or so. I often go “around” instead of through to get to someplace. Good for fitness and all that.
I think having been on swim teams throughout childhood & college helped immensely (but before you decide I”m a closet athlete, these were inclusive community teams and I would swim with younger groups so I could hope to keep up, and took intensive instruction to learn the strokes properly; the college was small, no cuts.) Swimming is being done in straight lines with ropes to keep you on the right path, too.
And no, I’m not really fond of driving, especially when it’s not a straight shot. (Love this part of Illinois for roads in grids, and you know you’re 7 miles from home because you just passed 2100 and Windsor road is 1400). My bicycle and I are good friends (but big groups make me nervous).

My ex-husband had a dreadful time with exactly this issue, but his problem was that he wanted everything organized and controlled and predictable and it literally drove him mad that he couldn’t plan and order and predict what all those moving people were doing. In fact he has far better vision and coordination and balance and speed than I ever had, but it just irritates him to have to keep adapting his judgements. He is also the world’s most stressed driver, for the same reason, that he can’t control every single car on the road. In fact he has a good driving record, but at the cost of giving himself and everyone else in the car with him nervous breakdowns. I found after several years of this that he has never learned to focus at a distance — when I taught driver’s safety ed, they recommended keeping your eyes 100 yards ahead in local driving (with *constant* re-checks nearer and farther) and 500 yards, or 1/4 mile and more, in highway driving. What I was taught to do and what safety experts recommend is to look far ahead and classify everything you see (unconsciously after a while) and then keep your attention on the things that are potential problems to you, while you file the non-hazards on the side and only go back to them if they do something different. One time we were in the city and he screamed at the top of his lungs “Look for that truck!!!” and I answered “What truck?” He threw a fit that I was not watching things that were in his opinion nearly colliding with us; I finally figured out that he meant a truck that was on a cross-street and which was already braking for a stop sign, so we would be long past the intersection before the truck could possibly enter it. I had long since checked the truck’s speed and position and had and discounted it as a danger; he was watching EVERY SINGLE OBJECT within a hundred yards of us — no wonder he was exhausted and a nervous wreck every time he got in a car! And he was never prepared for what was coming because he was so occupied with what was already there and past.
This applies directly to the mall walking issue as well. You have to have a degree of faith, that the other people don’t want to bump you any more than you want to bump them. (Exception of course for deliberate disturbers of the peace, but that’s a separate issue.) Most people are trying to avoid you just as you are trying to avoid them. So instead of worrying about every single one of them, you focus your eyes some distance ahead and walk in a predictable manner — as much of a straight line as possible, usualy keeping to the right, and keeping to a steady speed that is similar to the rest of the crowd. You worry about your own balance and about not hitting fixed objects such as benches. If you do come face to face, usually you go to the right as in driving — for most adults this is an unconscious habit. You’ll find that as you move smoothly, so do other people, and in general you’ll get along far better than when you tense up and try to judge each and every motion.

I feel you. I cannot really walk in what one would call a straight line. Being five foot ten really does not help me out with this at all. I crave personal space. I love going for a coffee at my University and then trying not to spill any as I “hightail it” out the door to sit on a bench by myself and read. The malls and busses are really hard to deal with, eh? I personally avoid malls, but sometimes public trnsportation is hard to deal with becuase of the numerous amounts of folks who get on the busses and whatnot. I find myself looking up and I more or less look like I am lost while I am walking unless I know the area really well. A good tip I learned in the sixth grade (when I reached my full height of five foot ten) is to view old films of Kim Novac if you have trouble walking and are a lady. Kim Novac had a walk like a panther and viewing her films really helped me at least not look like a total drunkard or something while walking:) Everyone has their own personal rhythm while walking that works in accordance with their resporatory systems and personal sense of balance, if you practice you can find your rythm. But, personal space is just something one has to learn to obtain, you know? It might not be at the time you would like, b ut maybe you can find yourself some time to your own self and balance that at with having to go to the mall or whatever. I like going to this huge thrift store near my home whose profits benefit the Disabled Vetrans and the amount of stuff at this store that I like to take a gander at, like old books and whatnot, is soo overwhelming to me that I walk a good two miles to this store to balance out my own personal space issue. Maybe this post is helpful to someone? I love how Sue loves her bike, if my knees were not shot I would be “all p into” a bike, that is the coolest form of transport there it!