Nonverbal+Learning+Disorder

A developmental disability which all too often goes undiagnosed. Individuals with this potentially debilitating disorder generally suffer in silence. The term is misleading. Individual with with NLD are //highly// verbal, with their areas of deficit being in the //nonverbal// domains. Have difficulty interacting with other children, with acquiring self-help skills, are not physically adept, are not adaptable, and present with a host of other troublesome problems that are of concern, but not alarming.
 * Explanation:**

People with aspergers syndrome also qualify as NLD.
 * Effects on the child at school:**
 * Success or failure is based largely on the environment of the studen
 * It is difficult for these children to understand the requirements of a particular situation, as well as how to adapt to it.
 * Childs life become far more challenging once school begins
 * Coping with multiple settings is difficult
 * Typical educational environment becomes totally overwhelming in middle school
 * Affects academic, social, and emotional development
 * Do not do well with word recognition, oral reading, spelling, mechanical arithmetic, complex math.
 * Elementary years
 * Circle time is not effective
 * Highly decorated classrooms, while providing significant visual stimulation, for NLD students decorations are serious barriers to learning.
 * Prevalence of the disorder:**

Non-verbal learning disorder is a complex and chronic problem. In addition to any strategies that 'treat' the current difficulites, successful treatment and management includes long term goals to build development and prevent problems.
 * Treatments:**

**How can teachers help: ** 
 * Use a consistent sub
 * Place student at front of classroom with the front wall free from distractions
 * Continue the same type of consistent, predictable, highly supportive environments in later years as the student had in earlier years
 * All children should be in foward facing desks
 * Desks should not touch
 * Do not leave unsupervised during unstructured time

Image? [|**NLD On the Web**] [|NLD Line]