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NLD Site
Index |
Introduction
to NLD |
Neuropsychological
Model |
Learning
Profile |
Wrapping
Up |
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Rourke’s
neuropsychological model and more recent research into the right
hemisphere and white matter lead to a profile of specific learning
assets and deficits in an individual with NLD. This profile involves
learning skills in the recognition, strategic, and affective networks
of the brain, including many areas of overlap between these networks.
Rourke
outlines his profile of the individual with NLD with the following
diagram (Harnadak & Rourke, 1994):
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| This profile provides a summary of the strengths
and weaknesses associated with NLD, as well as the academic and
socioemotional performance patterns. Certain elements of the
profile will be expanded and explained based on neuropsychological
research. Personal accounts from individuals
with NLD are presented in boxes in each section. |
| Recognition
Network: |
| As
suggested by the neuropsychological model that emphasizes strengths
in stored information and weakness in handling integration and novel
stimuli, individuals with NLD do not typically have difficulty recognizing
written letters or words, or sound segments in speech (Harnadek
& Rourke, 1994). They tend to have strengths in verbal memory
and easily recognize repetitive auditory input (Harnadek & Rourke,
1994). As such, children with NLD often have unusually large vocabularies
and good spelling skills (Thompson, 1996).
Individuals
with NLD often have difficulty however, in recognizing visual and
spatial details (Ingalls & Goldstein, 1999), semantic and conceptual
characteristics of language like irony, idioms, and metaphors (Rourke
& Tsatsanis, 1996), and social cues (Ingalls & Goldstein,
1999; Rourke & Tsatsanis, 1996). These difficulties lead to
numerous problems with life skills. Tera, a young adult with NLD,
describes the challenge of vacuuming when her visuo-spatial problems
prevent her from recognizing which areas of the carpet she has already
cleaned and which need to be done (Tera’s NLD Jumpstation).
Emotional
communication like prosody, facial expressions, and gestures are
often unnoticed by individuals with NLD (Rourke & Tsatsanis,
1996), and such individuals have difficulty recognizing the importance
of feedback to adjust behavior (Strang & Rourke, 1983). These
difficulties all relate to the dysfunction of cerebral white matter,
which is responsible for integrating information and cognitive processes
(Filley, 2001).
| My
Story
My
son has a verbal IQ in the high average/near gifted range,
a performance IQ a full 30 points below. He is Mr. Detail,
and can remember almost everything he ever read, heard,
saw on TV. He has always had a huge vocabulary---I can remember
that when he was a toddler, people would comment on how
many "grown-up" words he was able to use. They
thought it was cute, this little guy in diapers saying all
these complex words that normally come out of someone much
older. At 11, he still commands a great vocabulary, but
now the comments are things like, "William is really
smart, but he's weird!" That particular comment really
bothered me, because it came from an adult in our extended
family.
The most frustrating things about NVLD are that your kid
looks pretty "normal", is obviously bright, and
can clearly understand that he is "different".
Part of his "weirdness" comes of not being able
to pick up on those nonverbal cues we mentioned. I can remember
when he started working on this in speech, the SLP would
ask him, "If you are talking to me for a long time
about something and you see me yawn, what would that tell
you?" He responded that she must not have gotten enough
sleep. He truly didn't realize, until the SLP taught him,
that part of conversing was listening to the other person
and watching to see if they were showing
signs of understanding what he said, were bored, were
getting angry, etc. So, in real life, what happens is that
people just walk away from him. Makes me want to cry when
I see that. He doesn't have a lot of friends, doesn't know
how to make friends, really. But that, too, is getting better
with intervention. And the few friends he has are genuine.
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Written by
the mother of a child with NLD.
From http://www.nldline.com
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| This story clearly emphasizes
the large vocabulary and rote memory capabilities of individuals
with NLD and the potential problems this type of recognition
network can cause in social interactions. |
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| Strategic
Network: |
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The
neuropsychological model of NLD focuses on the syndrome’s impact
on strategic networks, as white matter dysfunction is typically
associated with difficulty devising processes to handle novel stimuli
and integrating information (Rourke, 1989). This means that individuals
tend to rely on rote processes like typical conversational exchanges
and routine academic procedures and have trouble “switching psychological
set” (Fisher et al., 1997) when changes to approach are needed.
They are very successful using rote repetition to memorize discrete
information like vocabulary words or geographic places (Harnadek
& Rourke, 1994), often leading to appearance as a “human encyclopedia.”
| A
Personal Story: An NLD Student's Own Strategies for Academic
Success
by Steven Vovk
I
always had to work hard at my subjects and was a gifted
student in some of them, average in others. Even before
I was diagnosed as having NLD, I couldn't deal with too
many changes right away and had to take my time adapting
to new courses, teachers, type of assignments and especially
new concepts.
At the beginning of an advanced high school Economics course,
my grade was a 40; I just couldn't understand the graphs
and the "whole picture" of economics. With daily
tutoring from my teacher and many all-nighters, I was exhausted,
but I finished the class with a 72 average. I realized it
was easier for me to understand the verbal explanations
and materials than the graphs and diagrams.
When I moved on to a course in law, I did quite well because
I was able to memorize the teacher's lectures word for word.
Straight memorization might take more time than most people
would like to spend studying for a course, but it was the
key to my success and an 86 in that class. |
From
http://www.nlda.org/PressReleases/personal_story.html
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| Steven Vovk, now
an adult with NLD, clearly explains the impact of the disorder
on his strategic processes. He takes time to adapt to
novel situations, focuses on details without seeing the whole
picture, uses verbal explanations more than visual ones, and
relies heavily on rote memorization.
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People with
NLD also can have superb rote verbal memory skills. This
means we are able to remember things like song lyrics, word
spellings, and new words. As a child, I was something of
a parrot, able to repeat whole chapters from my 3rd grade
science book verbatim. My memory helps me memorize speeches,
dates, and definitions. I love foreign languages. Today,
I'm in my third year of Latin and my second year of Spanish.
For the last two years I've received gold medals on the
National Latin Exam, and I have As in both classes now.
As I've said earlier, arithmetic can be difficult for people
with NLD to master; however, their memories can make them
excellent counters, and can also make them top adders in
their early years. When I was in kindergarten, I knew things
like 5 plus 5 and 3 minus 2, and I was able to do first
grade work.
NLD
persons can be taught to use their prodigious memories to
help them navigate through space. For example, I've learned
to memorize the license plate of my mom's car so I can find
it. We can also memorize house numbers, or learn to look
for landmarks with words, like signs. (Often, though, it's
hard for me personally to find street signs; some other
things, like houses with unusual colors, might also work
as landmarks). |
from Tera's NLD Jumpstation at http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/7262/ |
Tera,
an 18-year-old when she created her website, highlights
some of the benefits of her unique recognition system. |
Children
with NLD have been found to have weaker higher-order reasoning skills
and executive functioning skills than their peers with language-based
LDs (Fisher et al., 1997). Below average performance on the Halstead
Category Test and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test indicate difficulty
with rule learning, deduction, planning, response inhibition, working
memory, and/or cognitive flexibility, all of which are indicated
by the neurological model of white matter dysfunction.
| The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST)
is used to assess executive functioning. Children with
NLD have been found to perform below norms and below children
with other types of learning disabilities (Fisher et al.,
1997). |
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| Affective
Network: |
| Rourke’s
neuropsychological model (1989) is based on right hemisphere and
white matter research that did not involve affective components,
but individuals with NLD often have significant difficulty in the
affective domain. They tend to show deficits in participating in
social situations and reading affective communication and have been
found to be at increased risk for psychosocial dysfunction as they
mature (Pelletier et al., 2001), with higher than expected rates
of anxiety and depression (Ingalls & Goldstein, 1999).
Children
with right hemisphere dysfunction have been found to be socially
withdrawn, isolated, and considered “weird” by classmates (Voeller,
1986). They often get in fights because they crowd classmates and
fail to pick up on social cues, and they have abnormal prosodic
speech patterns and difficulty making eye contact (Voeller, 1986).
Recent
neuropsychological research in white matter explains this behavioral
finding more clearly than does Rourke’s model (1989). Filley (2001)
describes several emotionally dysfunctional manifestations associated
with demyelination of white matter tracts or abnormalities in white
matter volume, including depression, mania, and psychosis. This
relationship between dysfunctional white matter and affective disorders
suggests an explanation for the repeated finding of emotional and
social dysfunction of individuals with NLD.
| I
got fired from my first job as a supermarket cashier when
I was 17….
That
shattered my self-confidence and led to significant depression
throughout my last two years in high school.
Six
months before I was diagnosed with a nonverbal learning
disability, I had been inaccurately diagnosed with generalized
anxiety disorder. At that time, I was in the middle of failing
at a series of three vocational endeavors, consecutively
in a year's time. I was begging my doctor for Ritalin, which
had a dramatically positive effect on my learning ability
previously. She was adamant about refusing my suggestion;
stating that Ritalin was contraindicated in generalized
anxiety disorder. I did not see it that way. I felt if I
could learn more easily, quickly and effectively; my anxiety
would be reduced. The learning specialist whom diagnosed
my nonverbal learning disability and developmental disorder
explained to me that the bulk of my anxiety was secondary
to my nonverbal learning disability; not a symptom of generalized
anxiety disorder. If I was to guess what % of my anxiety
comes from specific sources; I would say that 75-80% is
secondary to my learning disabilities and 20-25% from aspects
of my childhood/family life in which were not ideal.
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| Lisa's emotional experiences
growing up with NLD and eventually being diagnoses at age
36 highlight the impact on the affective network this syndrome
can cause. |
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