Jessica Kingsley Publishers

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Understanding Nonverbal Learning Disabilities

A Common-Sense Guide for Parents and Professionals

Maggie Mamen

Part of the JKP Essentials series

Paperback: £13.99 / $21.95

2007, 246mm x 173mm / 10in x 7in, 176pp
ISBN: 978-1-84310-593-0, BIC 2: JM JMC VFJD

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Overview

This guide started out several years ago as the notes for presentations and handouts to groups of parents, educators, and other professionals, and grew through five previous drafts. Its metamorphosis is primarily due to the ongoing discussions and consultations shared with professionals and parents from all over the province of Ontario, and across provincial and national borders. In addition, hundreds of children, adolescents and adults have provided invaluable data, observations, and experiences of nonverbal learning difficulties (NLDs) in all their forms. Feedback from parents, teachers, and other professionals has been both encouraging and thought-provoking, and has continued to produce new questions, to generate new hypotheses, and to provide new ideas.

This classification of subtypes of NLD is founded on clinical practice - those individuals we see in our offices for assessments and interventions - not on empirically based research studies. In our multidisciplinary practice, our experiences with clients of all ages tell us repeatedly that not all individuals with NLD show the full range of difficulties that are contained in the literature on the NLD syndromes. For example, while many have noticeable social difficulties or problems with balance and coordination, still others are socially popular and athletically talented. We have thus concluded that grouping all individuals with NLD under one diagnostic "label," especially when attempting to generate a useful set of recommendations, is neither realistic nor helpful, since there appear to be as many differences within the group as there are between this group and other learning exceptionalities. In addition, the sheer volume of symptoms, behaviors, emotional factors, and other issues presented by such eminent authors as Byron Rourke, SueThompson, and others are more often than not completely overwhelming anddistressing for those people involved in any aspect of NLD from either a personal or a professional perspective. Thus, it is our belief that separating themajor presenting issues into four clusters, or "subtypes," can be helpful in understanding, assessing, diagnosing, and managing individuals with learning disabilities by giving everyone a focus and a place to start.

The purpose of this guide is not simply to review and update the original information several years down the road from its inception, but also to introduce the concept of pattern recognition deficits as being fundamental to a range of difficulties experienced by individuals with NLD. As with the idea of clinical subtypes, the role of pattern recognition in NLD, while a common-sense connection to make in terms of learning clearly being the recognition and reproduction of some kind of pattern, is not grounded in systematic research. Rather, it emerges as an intriguing idea that provides not only a paradigm for understanding many of the diverse presenting symptoms that constitute this complex disorder, but also a framework for suggesting some common-sense strategies that open up more possibilities for remediation and compensation.

There are many factors that impact a person's ability to learn. These factors include both intrinsic and extrinsic issues, including genetics, motivation, level of environmental stimulation, language of instruction, family crises, chaotic and/or dysfunctional family situation, separation and divorce, physical or mental illness, problems with hearing or vision, inadequate instructional opportunities, and so on. It is not the purpose of this guide to explore any of these - simply to ensure that there is an awareness that an NLD is only one of a number of factors that should be considered in the presence of learning difficulties.

Thanks to my colleagues at Centrepointe Professional Services (in particular, Dr. Joel Kanigsberg, Dr. Jody Alberts-Corush, Dr. Susan Rich, Dr. James Lazowski, Dr. Carrie Horne, Dr. Petra Duschner, Meg Waurick, Judi Laurikainen, and Sally Lees); there have been many spirited and inspiring discussions by the photocopier, over coffee or at brown-bag lunches with respect to the various clients who fill our caseloads. Brenda Case, our educational consultant, is a goldmine of ideas when it comes to teaching strategies and I am particularly grateful to her for a number of the suggestions for teachers contained in this guide. She is also unflaggingly willing to help children with various learning problems through her diagnostic teaching, tutoring, and training activities. We are all seeing more and more children who present with nonverbal deficits, and yearn to take time out of our busy practices to conduct some research on the ideas and hypotheses that our experiences continue to generate. The sections on Developmental Coordination Disorder were contributed by Dr Cheryl Missiuna, Ph.D and O.T. Reg (Ont.) who is an occupational therapist (OT) at the school of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and head of CanChild, and Denise DeLaat, also an OT, from the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa. Their contributions are much appreciated, and serve to emphasize the need for a multidisciplinary perspective in the field of NLD.

The major purpose of our involvement with individuals with NLD is to help them, their parents and educators, and others who live and work with this complex learning problem, to understand what is going on, where their strengths and weaknesses lie, how to predict challenging situations, and what can be done to assist these youngsters. It is with these goals in mind that the guide has been written. While the focus is on children, much of it also holds true for individuals of all ages. It is not meant to be exhaustive, but is intended to act as a "seed" paper to generate further debate and, it is hoped, some research-based verification of the notion of subtypes of NLD. At the same time, it includes a number of general suggestions that have proved to be helpful in terms of addressing the needs of the various subtypes that we are proposing. These strategies are presented in terms of the particular need, rather than by subtype, since there is quite definitely some overlap for many children and since there is usually one particular issue that takes precedence over others at any given time.

Alas, none of the strategies or suggestions comes with a money-back guarantee, and the efficacy of any single one will depend heavily on factors such as motivation, drive, personality, parent-child relationships, teacher variables, behavioral issues, and everything else that contributes to our inter- and intrapersonal environments. Common-sense and intuition are invaluable, however, and nothing ventured is always nothing gained. As Henry Ford reportedly said: "Whether you think you can, or whether you think you cannot, you are right!" (www.landofwisdom.com/author/henry-ford/page6.html).

I should like to acknowledge a very special debt of gratitude to the many parents and clients who have shared their very personal, insightful, and sometimes quite distressing experiences with me. In particular, a very dynamic lady from Kitchener-Waterloo, Cheryl Pidgeon, a co-founder of NLD Ontario, a network of enthusiastic and committed parents, has been an inspiration, a strong supporter, and a source of endless questions and challenges. It is interactions such as these that keep this project alive and dynamic.