How can I get other students (Gr.7/8) to understand that one student has NVLD and cannot help her “annoying” habits, and give her a chance in the classroom?
Re: Non verbal learning disorders
While it’s important to teach other kids to be tolerant of a child’s differences, as the parent of an NLD child I think it’s also a mistake to assume that the NLD child cannot “help” behaving the way s/he does. NLD children CAN _definitely_ learn to modify annoying behavior. But they won’t learn from other kids giving them the “cold shoulder” or other non-verbal cues that most kids would pick up on.
Most NLD children want very much to fit in. They don’t WANT to be annoying. They need to have their unacceptable behaviors pointed out to them in a matter of fact, and very clear way. Can you teach you other students to simply tell the NLD child what is bothering them in a plain and direct VERBAL manner?
For instance, “Jim, do you realize that you keep tapping on the table? I really can’t concentrate on my own work when you do that. Could you please stop?” Jim will probably stop right away, but may soon forget again. The hard part will be to get the other kids to be patient while continuing to let Jim know that his behavior is not acceptable.
Since this kind of communication is really good practice for everyone, you can even incorporate it into general classroom “rules” for everyone to follow. Everyone does annoying things every now and then… The NLD kids just tend to do them more often!
Karen
Does the student know her diagnosis? Is she comfortable with others knowing?
If she does, I’d probably take advantage of her first absence from the class to discuss it with her classmates. There are some of Richard Lavoie’s tapes that could be shown to help the other student raise their awareness of learning issues and how they play into social behavior.