NLDline
– This is a slightly revisedgeneric letter from a California parent writing to his governor. It is here toreflect the growing desire for the education of educators on the subject of NLD and tooffer a model to those of you wishing to write your own legislators.
Name.
Address
City, State, Zip
Telephone
Date
Governor Gray Davis (YOURGOVERNOR)
State Capitol, First Floor (ADDRESS)
Sacramento, California 95814 (CITY,STATE, ZIP)
Dear Governor Davis: (YOURGOVERNOR)
I do believe you when you say that theeducation of our children is your major concern. Do you want to improve every child’sperformance? Even the child with special needs?
Our child, has qualified for some specialeducation resources because of their Nonverbal Learning Disorder. According to his gradelevel responsible special education administrator in the ______ Unified School District,the funds for these resources have been cut back. Do you plan to mainstream these childrenwith special needs and thus lessen funding for special education? If so, an equivalentproportion of the increased funds that have become available for education in the State ofCalifornia (YOUR STATE) must be designated for these children withspecial needs.
I included some excerpts from SueThompson’s The Source For Nonverbal Learning Disorders, a book that describes adisorder that many children have; I include these for the review of your education staffso that they may knowledgeably inform you on this issue. Most students with NonverbalLearning Disorders are not receiving adequate services in the public schools, andtherefore are not receiving a “free appropriate public education as PL94-142requires.” This inadequacy of services is partly due to the newness of this diagnosis- despite the longtime existence of this condition – and therefore the lack of knowledgeof and experience with the treatment of this learning disability.
The resultant lack of early interventionfor these children may destroy their lives. They are prone to higher rates of depressionand suicide, which can be minimized by early intervention. Children with NLD may makecompensations in the early years of school that may discourage early intervention on theirbehalf. They may achieve adequately in the classroom and on standardized tests through the4th grade. Intervention is too late in the 5th grade, when the “red flags”finally go up because their skills for organization and development of written work don’tadvance at the expected rate for a student! Until 5th grade these children may be viewedas academically adequate, but they are often viewed as social problems, “problemchildren,” who are constantly berated and reproached because of their lack of socialskills. As a result of four to five years of such negative reinforcement, the child withNLD may then believe he or she is bad, be stripped of any sense of self-worth, andconsider him or herself a complete failure.
To make things worse, negative staffattitudes toward these children provide fellow students with license to emotionally abusethe student with NLD. This vicious cycle will have been in operation for several yearswhen the academic warnings are sounded. This is too late. The tragedy of thelateness of this intervention in these children’s lives by today’s well-intentionedspecial educators is exacerbated by our well-meaning educators’ lack of knowledge of NLD.There are not enough special education personnel and even they are often ignorant of NLD,besides being pointlessly burdened with required quarterly reports of at least six pagesper student.
On page 72 of the material, which I hopehas been forwarded to your education staff, there is a sentence that states “Teachersand other school personnel (i.e., psychologists, speech therapists, and occupationaltherapists) need to be trained to spot the early adjustment problems seen in a studentwith the NLD syndrome, and be better equipped to formulate and implement appropriatecompensations, accommodations, modifications and learning strategies for this student.Only then can the child with NLD be treated with the competence and justice he or shedeserves.”
What can you do?
1. There are educators,psychologists, occupational therapists and speech therapists in the private sector who arehighly trained in the recognition and treatment of this disorder. Find them and use them.
2. There are web sites(www.nldline.com; www.nldontheweb.org) with books, articles, videos and resource listingsfor NLD.
3. Funds should be made availablefor statewide inservices so that the experienced professionals from the private sector cancome into the public schools to share their knowledge about NLD and its treatment withtheir colleagues.
4. Funds should be made availableso that more educators and therapists in the public schools can attend the lectures,conferences and workshops on NLD.
5. Funds should also be madeavailable for the books, articles and videos on the subject, as well as the appropriateteaching materials for the children with NLD, to be made available to the resource roomsor teacher libraries of the public schools.
This sort of help from the private sectorshould be necessary for only a few years, after which, hopefully, a growing mutuallysupportive and equally knowledgeable relationship may be established between both sectors.
If such expertise can be developed in thepublic school system, many lives will be saved, and the State of California (YOURSTATE), as well as society at large will benefit morally, socially, spirituallyand financially. Our children deserve this level of service.
There are a growing number of concernedparents across the state, country, and apparently the world, as evidenced by the numberand address of NLD web site visitors. Those of us in California (YOUR STATE)await your positive and aggressive response. We will tax the political system with ourpetitions. We hope that we need not tax our local school board’s resources or our state’sresources with legal petitions if our requests are not heard.
Thank you for your attention to thismatter.
Yours sincerely,
YOUR NAME
Enclosure
cc: Senator (YOUR STATE SENATOR)
NAME ______
Special Education, _______ Unified SchoolDistrict
NAME ______
Special Education, ______ Unified SchoolDistrict
(CITY AND COUNTRY SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS,MAYORS, etc.)
Please email NLDline with other letters of import or suggestions onthis subject!
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