NLD Information and Support Thread

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Cool, it sounds like you're in great shape for college. Are you living in a dorm with a meal plan? That generally gets rid of a lot of the practical issues too, leaving just laundry, paying any bills, keeping your room organized, and going shopping occasionally. Actually, you might be ahead of a lot of people, because lots of people don't know how to do laundry when they go to college! I was surprised how many of my NT friends had no clue. Their parents always did it for them.

How did you get your social scripts, did you just kind of come up with them automatically? Mine were a combination of consciously observing what people said to their friends and trying to copy it (for knowing what <i>to</i> do), and sort of empathically absorbing people's attitudes about what was awkward and "Not OK" (for knowing what <i>not</i> to do).

Yep, will definitely read your blog. If you feel like answering, which ADD traits looked like they applied but didn't?

Awesome...me too!

You're right, it's so easy to read us as being absent-minded professors. Especially when we make it easier by doing things like talking about ideas...for fun!

Not really going into my own theories right now, but they are somewhat shaped by being a "dumping bin" person myself, without a lot of the social and rigidity symptoms for AS. I'm looking forward to reading your essay; it would be great to have another perspective on the issue.

Thanks for answering!

I have NLD without ADD, and I know of other folks with NLD for whom this is also the case. I think that for me, my executive function issues from NLD might sometimes resemble some traits of ADD. But I don't meet the diagnostic criteria for ADD, never have.

I'm not sure what verbal conceptualization is, but I think I do have good reading comprehension. I wish there were more standard descriptions of NLD, because it seems like accounts you've read have emphasized issues with reading comprehension more than accounts that I've read. I never had the impression that it was a big part of NLD. That said, my visual-spacial skills are also not that bad. However, I have bad executive function, which falls into the visual-spacial skills category.

As far as I know, NLD is basically a huge discrepancy between verbal scores and performance scores. If you have that, it seems like you can get diagnosed with NLD. It seems like the other criteria have just grown up around this basic one.

Also-- it seems like NLD has a lot in common with AS, rather than being what AS is not. I think there are far more similarities than differences.

What do you mean by executive function? You describe it as being visual spatial, which I have never heard of before (although sometimes it seems like people call everything executive function).

What I mean by verbal conceptualization is the ability to form and use abstract concepts in words. This would be usd in seeing relationships, making analogies, drawing deductions, etc. The idea seems to be that there is something rote, mechanical and concrete about the sort of concepts people with nvld use. This doesn't seem to be true for me or some of the other posters here, AFAIK.

I'll try to post some links soon. Will have to find them again.

Two of the more reputable looking links:
Nonverbal Learning Disabilities Association
http://www.nlda.org/index.php?submenu=E ... icCriteria

at www.nldline.com, the article "What is Nonverbal Learning Disorder: in a Nutshell"

Don't know if this helps, but from NLDline:

What is NLD? Nonverbal learning disorders (NLD) is a neurological syndrome consisting of specific assets and deficits. The assets include early speech and vocabulary development, remarkable rote memory skills, attention to detail, early reading skills development and excellent spelling skills. In addition, these individuals have the verbal ability to express themselves eloquently. Moreover, persons with NLD have strong auditory retention. Four major categories of deficits and dysfunction also present themselves:

•motoric (lack of coordination, severe balance problems, and difficulties with graphomotor skills).

•visual-spatial-organizational (lack of image, poor visual recall, faulty spatial perceptions, difficulties with executive function* and problems with spatial relations).

•social (lack of ability to comprehend nonverbal communication, difficulties adjusting to transitions and novel situations, and deficits in social judgment and social interaction).

•sensory (sensitivity in any of the sensory modes: visual, auditory, tactile, taste or olfactory)

*definition of executive function: Neuropsychological functions including, but perhaps not limited to, decision making, planning, initiative, assigning priority, sequencing, motor control, emotional regulation, inhibition, problem solving, planning, impulse control, establishing goals, monitoring results of action, self-correcting. From http://www.behavenet.com/

I've been wondering- do any of you NLDers have trouble with empathy? because that's something that I've been struggling with a lot lately...

I'd say that I have a degree of difficulty with empathy. It's hard to explain exactly what is difficult- people that know me would say that I show empathy. I tend to think that what happens is that I have learned to be a good actor most of the time. I notice that I don't often actually "feel" anything when it comes to what others perceive as me being empathic. The "sharing" part of empathy just isn't there for me a lot of the time. What I am good at is thinking a situation through and making logical deductions about what someone might be feeling based on what I know about human behavior from studying it for so long (from my own informal observations and from my academic studies as a psych major). I guess for me empathy is more like a skill to be practiced rather than something that I automatically engage in. Most of the time I just seem to be a step or two back from other people, not really connected. I notice that it takes a lot of cognitive effort for me to bridge the gap and connect with others.

Last edited by GreyThorn on 30 Mar 2010, 9:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What trouble do you have with it?

I have a lot of empathy but I feel like sometimes it lacks boundaries. When I think about the suffering of other people, I get easily overwhelmed. I might also have a hard time expressing the empathy I do feel in a way that people understand. As much as I feel for someone's problems, I am AWFUL at comforting people.

I also have a lot of empathy towards animals, which judging from other threads here, is common for people on the spectrum.

Yes....I don't seem to have any and I really despise myself for it.


I feel like a reluctant ghoul or something.


If there's anything positive about it all...it serves to reinforce my hard determinism.


After all....I don't think anyone would "choose" to be a cold, indifferent zombie.


How on earth do you cultivate a thing like empathy?

I'm not always clear on what people mean by empathy. Some people mean the ability to care about other people and feel compassion for them. Other people mean literally feeling the same emotions other people are feeling just by being around them. What do you mean?

Also, it is possible to have empathy, in both senses, but not have good social skills. At least, this is what I experience.

I recommend verbalizing the task step-by-step, and then practicing it with the kid. Don't expect the kid to just be able to do it on their own- TEACH it to them.



I have been diagnosed with NLD, but it is not clear whether I should be diagnosed with ADD separately, or whether my problems with executive functioning are just part of the NLD. It's more of an issue with the differentiation between executive functioning deficits in ADD and those in NLD, than anything else. I definitely score VERY highly on those adult ADHD checklists. There is actually an adult ADHD clinic within a few hours of where I live- I've thought about going there for assessment, not really just for diagnosis (3 psychologists have told me they think I have it, so I think the diagnosis would be a given), but rather because they work with you after diagnosis to help you cope better with difficult life tasks.

I guess that doesn't really answer your question though. How about this: one of the classification schemata that has been proposed for NLD does *not* include problems with attention or executive functioning as one of the core NLD traits- rather it would refer to people like me as NLD Type 2: NLD plus executive functioning difficulties (type 1 is NLD with core traits only).



I have never had issues with verbal conceptualization or reading comprehension. Or with writing well, for that matter (another NLD trait is supposedly writing papers that read more like lists, with no structure or coherence). And I've read a lot of NLDers say that they don't have trouble with these things either. However, I chose to include those criteria on the NLD description on this thread anyway (I started the thread and wrote that first long post about NLD), because they seem to pop up everywhere in descriptions of NLD.



I think it makes as much sense as the classification of other disorders, such as AS, ADD, and autism. I just think that there is also a lot of work ahead for scientists and researchers to really figure out the etiologies of these disorders and their relationships to each other.

LostInSpace, interesting ideas!

Another helpful one is, if a child with NLD is bad at some particular sort of task, don't teach it under time pressure, even if it seems more efficient that way! If cooking is hard, don't teach some new cooking skill while rushing to finish Thanksgiving dinner! Makes it less stressful to do the teaching too, I think.

Which classification system breaks NLD up this way, btw? It makes sense to me. Also, that's great you have that sort of clinic near you. It sounds like it could be very helpful!

Disorganization in writing comes in different varieties. I've never written laundry-list papers, but I've had teachers suggest I switch the order of whole paragraphs and tell me I need more transition sentences. There was a structure there, but it was not optimal. My problems come from fitting a Wikipedia-style concept map, with chains of ideas going in all directions, into a linear essay structure. I always allow a week to write a paper, but I still turn end up turning them in at the last minute, lol). Anyway, why do you think these traits pop up everywhere in descriptions, especially since there's a whole subset of people with NLD on this list who don't seem to have them?

I see what you mean. I wonder if NLD just seems less well-defined right now because it's been studied less?

For the record, reading comprehension and writing have always been one of my strong points, and if anything, I have far too much empathy.

Well, that's definitely something to howl about ! !!

Gotta have something.

I'm really good at those as well. My language arts skills have always been through the roof, but I am just horrible at math!