NLD Information and Support Thread

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Boy, am I glad I stumbled across this thread...I got a voicemail yesterday from someone I'd been referred to who said she apologized that she took so long in getting back to me, etc., etc, but that she was trying to set up a diagnostic test with someone else to see if I what I had was Asperger's or a "Non-Verbal Learning Disability," and that she thought she'd do a much better job helping me if I saw her after this exam or test.

And as of that call I'd never even heard the term, so I've been puzzling over it since. And now I sort of know.

My hat is off to the WP community. This thread alone has been worth the price of admission. Oh, wait. ..

I'm experimenting with writing a blog about NLD... God only knows why! I just find the lack of NLD blogs/information so ridiculous that I thought I'd do my part to change that

Anyway, here it is: http://onefootonthespectrum.wordpress.com/

I have a few questions regarding Nonverbal Learning Disorders and the tendency of those afflicted with an NLD to take what they hear from someone else as literally as possible.

I need some information and guidance to help me determine if it is the bad wiring in my brain that has brought me to the current point in my life, or if it is just a lack of commitment to succeed that is the true culprit.

Until I was diagnosed, I never really thought about how I would interpret what people were saying to me. That is, I did not know that I did not know. After I was diagnosed, I started to realize that I did take a lot of things very, very, VERY literally when I was younger and I still do at times.

For example, I put my house on the market a few years ago and the realtor and I determined that the house would have to be sold at a loss, but the bank that held my mortgage would have to approve this short sale. During this whole mess, I told my realtor that I was not making enough money at my work-at-home job and that I could not afford to continue living in my house, which was one of the reasons why I had to sell my house. The realtor advised at some point that if the mortgage company could see that it was difficult for me to make money, that it would be more inclined to approve the short sale. Of course, I took the realtor's advice and I ran with it because I thought that that was what I should have done. From the moment I took the realtor's advice, I was not too concerned about making enough money with my job because I thought it would facilitate selling the house. I also thought that my wife was on the same page as I was because she was standing next to me when the realtor told me this, but she was not.

Does this sound like something that someone with a nonverbal learning disability could do?

Would the possibility of being thrown out of his house, losing his job or having his wife walk out on him play into the afflicted person’s decision-making process, or would the person with the disorder go only on what he literally heard another person tell him?

As much as someone with an NLD needs to hear, precise step-by-step instructions for what others want that person to do, is it necessary for the afflicted to be as clear and precise when we answer questions or explain ourselves?

If any of you have a nonverbal learning disorder and you take what people tell you literally or you have been able to work around this issue, could you have done what I did and act on the advice from the realtor and assume that your spouse understood what you were doing and why you were doing it?

I think back and realize that I took a lot of what was said to me as literally as I possibly could have taken it. The whole time I have been thinking that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing and I was not. I just need to know that I have been acting normal for someone who has this disability, or if I am an uncaring, unsympathetic, self-centered, lazy, etc. fool.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

pjr:

Yes, that's common. During grad school I had an assistantship as a residence director. I was one of the conduct officers for my department. My supervisor handed me a large stack of judicials that needed to be handled. She said "Just note that the student didn't appear for the hearing and apply the standard sanction for the infraction."

So what did I do? I literally wrote "The student did not appear" in the blank just like we had discussed. And then I get an angry letter in my mailbox about how I'm essentially an idiot and I "should have known better" than to just write what we had discussed verbatim.

Hi people.

Am totally new here. Is a little scarey. Please play nicely.

Just wanted to say that I visited this planet thinking I may be Aspie. Have read a bit, now I am certain that NLD fits me like a glove. This whole thing is both scarey and somehow liberating for me.

I hope you will help me on this journey - it looks like it is going somewhere good.

Btw, meltdowns? Have got used to thinking that my tendency to totally emotionally dissolve at times, whilst needing space and/or someone who totally understands and accepts me was a depressive thing. Could it me more to do with the fact that my brain is wired differently and that living in the 'real world' has always, if I admit it, been such hard work?

Over to you...

I found out that I have NLD because my son was having problems in school and an attorney pointed out to me that my son had a 30 pt discrepency within his IQ score. I typed higher verbal than performance IQ into the search bar on my computer and all the peices of the puzzles fell into place. The doctors say that NLD is not inherited but without doubt my 87 year old dad has it, I have it, (52) I beleive my daughter (26) some form of it but with more Aspie tendencies, my son (16) has been diagnosed with Apergers along with NLD as well as NLD and no Asperger's. My grandson (7) is a definite NLDer but his brother (4) has classic autism and Angelman's syndrome.
I have every single symptom of NLD. I make excellent eye contact but I am socially awkward. I am far too trusting. I will never again go to a car dealership alone. I have few very good close freinds. Not good at math but practice makes perfect, love to read, hate TV, can always entertain myself but get lonely, hate crowds, always stick up for the down trodden. I think NT people are amazingly shallow and stupid and I identify with everyone on the Spectrum like it's instinct.
I have found my niche in life as a special ed teacher ( don't worry I use spell check a lot). I have learned to navigate through life but it has never been easy. I am honest, stick to the rules, never play mind games. I do okay unless I have a conflict with someone and then I can't figure it out so I obsess over it.
I feel like there is a layer of glass between me and the NT society. It is like being blind or deaf. The social sense is really a sense and I don't have it. I think whatever it is it makes people blind in other ways, mostly spiritually in some way, it is hard to describe. I think people who have NLD are much more influenced by life experiences than Aspies are. We are all very differant because of that but we all share the same pain. I am glad we have each other and I am glad that I found out why my life has been so difficult. At least I know that I have done my very best even if nobody else thinks so.

NLD is usually caused by a structural abnormality in the brain; it's not a heritable trait and thusly it's unusual for NLD to run in families. There are other disorders/disabilities which cause similar difficulties but are not NLD.

A PIQ/VIQ discrepancy is only one necessary characteristic for NLD.

I am well informed on the subject of NLD. My son has had extensive psychlogical testing by two experts who both diagnosed him with NLD/Asperger's. The Asperger's I question because he does not have the same type of social problems, and he has responded to being bullied by fighting back, adults think he is being defiant when he does not intend to be, and he has a bad reputation at school which caused his popularity soar. He has a very effective way of defending himself or anyone he sees being mistreated. Most of all he does not have a particular interest and never has but he is obsessive about his appearence. He is very social but began having difficulty mantaining freindships a few years ago. When he was younger and got into trouble I could talk to him and find out what he had done wrong and tell him what to do instead and that always worked. Of course I can't do that now but our minds still work the same like that. Our thinking, our brain basics, are an inherited trait and I am certian of that. If it developed that way because of some other genetic factor, I can't say. I do know that I fit the NLD profile perfectly and so do the other members of my family. We do not live in the NT world but we can pass as eccentric as long as we are on familiar ground. Of course, my mom is NT, my husband is NT and my daughter's husband is NT. We do have help. Most people wander if they have this or that but know that me and my family memebers are pure, straight NLD and nothing else. My daughter is having her 4th child soon, genetic testing ?

Hi, I'm new here, & I had a few questions about NVLD.

First, I've noticed that NVLD can make it hard for kids to become independent, and for parents to know how to help this happen. It's a no-win situation for parents--if they try to force the child with NVLD to do some problematic motor or self-care skill, the child can't do it, gets frustrated, & fights with the parent. But if the parent waits for the child to grow out of it, the child might never grow out of it & might feel unprepared for life when he/she gets to be a young adult. Anyone have any insight into this situation, from either side?

Second, for those of you who have come up with social scripts, do they eventually outgrow their usefulness? I've increasingly found that the "scripts" I came up with several years ago no longer work, & that I actually have the social information I need but am ignoring it in favor of the scripts, which are now automatic. If this has happened to you, did you give up on scripts entirely, or did you replace them with better and more complex ones?

Third, from what people said here, I'm getting the impression that NVLD almost always comes with ADD. Do you, or anyone else you know, have NVLD without ADD, & what is that like?

Fourth, one of the symptoms often mentioned is being good at the mechanical aspects of language, but poor at verbal conceptualization & reading comprehension. How essential/common/important do you think this trait actually is? What would you make of a person with terrible visual-spatial skills, navigation ability, calculation ability, & time sense, but advanced reading comprehension & ability to think about abstract concepts? If you are like this, do you feel like NVLD really fits you, or just that it's better than nothing?

Lastly, it seems like we're all defining NVLD differently because we have different views of AS, & NVLD is whatever AS isn't. If you have a very restrictive definition of AS that precludes empathy, then a lot more people will seem NVLD than if you believe that a person with AS can have higher levels of social skills & emotional intelligence. Do you think NVLD labels some sort of neural or cognitive profile out there, or is it just a bin where we can dump people who don't fit in AS or other bins well enough?