Because the diagnosis of dyslexia is longestablished, many communities have schools and programs for children with these learningproblems. However, nonverbal learning disabilities are a more recent area of interest toeducators. Many children and adults are just being diagnosed with this disorder, and whilemuch academic interest is being generated, there is a dearth of programs and resourcesavailable. How frustrating for parents to finally find out what their child is sufferingfrom and what his needs are and be unable to help him.
Twelve years ago, when my daughter was six years old,it became obvious that she could not handle a regular mainstream classroom situation. Arecent psycho-educational evaluation had shown a twenty-five point difference between herverbal and performance I.Q. But because her verbal score was in the superior rangeand none of her performance subtests were significantly below normal, we were told thatshe did not qualify for any resources for the learning disabled that our publicschool system offered. So we selected a small private school that had a reputation forcreative schooling, small classes, and warm and caring teachers.
It was a disaster. The highly stimulating atmosphereof the classroom with its multiple groups, high noise levels, abundance of brightlycolored bulletin boards, and circular seating arrangement overwhelmed my daughter. She hadtrouble following directions, paying attention. She kept falling out of her seat. Theteacher grew impatient and grouped her with the boys who were behavior problems. She wasconstantly yelled at, even sent to the principal’s office. It didn’t take the kids verylong to ostracize her as well.
Our only alternative was to place her in awell-established private school for dyslexia in our community. Though the teachers theredid not know anything about nonverbal learning disabilities at that time, they were astuteenough to realize that our daughter’s testing profile was very unusual. In fact, it wasalmost the opposite, or mirror image, of the typical profile of their average student.Because our daughter had significant fine and large motor problems, and particularlyvisual-motor difficulties, they were willing to work with her.
How fortunate we were. The school realized that manykids thrive in a highly structured classroom with minimal competing visual and auditorystimuli. Though our child’s problems were not exactly like those of the other children atthe school, there was enough crossover so that she was able to benefit from thecurriculum. She was clearly the top reader at the school, and the biggest klutz!
Many of the techniques used in teaching the dyslexicchild were of enormous value in remediating her visual-motor handicap. Dyslexic childrenalso have difficulty copying from the board. Finding definitions in a dictionary was anoverwhelming task until she learned to cut out a window in an index card and place it overthe entry she needed to copy. In doing math problems, she learned to turn ruled paper onits side and use the lines to create columns.
What a clever way to work long division. She learned to talk her waythrough her mathwork; each problem became a little story (let’s go to this house to borrowa ten…). The school’s speech therapist worked to make her robotic speech a littlemore age appropriate and taught her slang expressions; the occupational therapist workedon her sensory integration concerns. Even though she was extremely uncoordinated, a veryunderstanding physical education coach applauded her effort and good sportsmanship withconstant positive feedback.
Yes, the school did not address some of the problemswe needed to attack. The focus was purely academic and little attention was paid toremediate social skill deficits. Also, a curriculum that focused much of its energy ondecoding problems did not have the ability to address more sophisticated readingcomprehension issues. NLD kids need particular help with implied information, inferredknowledge, and metaphorical language. Not having all of her needs met clearly was not ofutmost importance at that time. We had a happy child who was learning in a stress-freeenvironment.