NLD Information and Support Thread

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It's interesting to read about everyone's experience with NLD because it differs from person to person.

I'm horrible at math. I do not like word problems because they're too difficult for me to comprehend and I do not care for the problems where they have geometrical figures in them and they ask you to pull the algebraic equation from it and solve it.

I avoid chemistry as well. Balancing the chemical equations are horrible.

P.E. for me is so-so. I don't mind the activities where no sports is involved. My perception of hitting a ball was always off.

Art is okay. I gave up on drawing when I realized I wasn't that good at it. The only art class I did enjoy was ceramics. The teacher didn't really care what your project looked like as long as it was presentable.

My favorite subjects so far are writing, English, foreign language, history, and any sociology class. I'm pretty good at writing but starting any writing project is hard for me as I don't know where to begin. English is a given and I come by learning foreign language easily. Enunciation is a whole different story. History is always fascinating to learn about and sociology classes like psychology and criminology are also fascinating as well.

Mind you, my experiences come from elementary, middle, and high school and I'm in college right now.

My likes are similar except I liked chemistry since I went to a tutor. Biochemistry was even better since it combined biology & how chemistry works in the human body. Now I know why parallel parking has always been so difficult for me (NVLD).

I also love anything involving words such as crossword puzzles, word searches, and reading the dictionary.

You always can find plenty of information on aspergers but never about nlvd, probably because its less widely known besides less verbal differences.

People who acknowledge their own disorders may still find they have very little awareness of the happenings around them. In some parts of a county you get more understanding and awareness being met than others and the stats show up in articles and newspapers. all I know is that whenever I couldn't understand the gist of something that well or needed some explaining about something, I was more or less shunned off with others with mental disturbance issues. so in other words I still wasn't getting acknowledged on a task that was being read out because of people distracting me and later on my confidence issues began to swell up. I mean, I never even got a diagnosis of any kind until I was 20, seriously undermining my self-esteem in the process of my teens and early childhood. I v come to accept that it would indeed be impossible without any sort of intervention at all to have accurate tests or clear diagnostic sense to divulge the differences and similarities between onset of autism lets say to nlvd or asd.
Its because narrow minded obstinate people who cant hear you or understand your mental thinking are leading you down the route of dismissal or false diagnosis which is why perhaps I find myself in the thinking stages of this likely scenario yet again.

http://www.nldline.com/yvonna.htm
http://www.myaspergerschild.com/2010/12 ... rning.html

Everytime I personally try to raise awareness people ignore it.

I am not asking for a personal definition from anyone else or who they think has got it, I was merely adding to this discussion what I found typical of the awareness issues surrounding both this medical condition and asd. I found that the differences weren't that random but quite marginalised in how the data is processed at an early age. There are slight subtle clues, like in nld, you can look at someone for too long and be unaware of the spatial timing you need but with gradual ease of someone relaying this to you, then you begin to see it is an occurrence and something that needs to change. in asd, its like they are told something, but carry on anyway, just to define and absolve a definition within obsessional and abstract boundaries.
There are loads of ways to sum up people, but many of whom don't like to be given a safe diagnosis to their worried assurance whether they are right wrong or whatever.
I'd be interested in what someone can relate to with this definition from a specific event and including verbal and non-spatial awareness.

Hello.

My writing may not be so good as I'm on my mobile phone.

I recently went to a counsellor who it turns out also worked with young people with learning differences. Not knowing this I discussed my life, school troubles and issues and in literally ten minutes she suggested that my assignment this week should be to research non verbal learning disorder.

I was amazed by how much it sounded like me, and while I am not the biggest fan of forums, I wanted to post about this and thank others for posting their experiences.

As a child I excelled academically, but found it difficult to understand other children and typically spoke more to teachers. I also hated physical education, and things that involved graphs, writing that wasn't creative and stimulating, and motor skills. When I did talk to children my age I would either try to emulate their speech badly or be very long winded and not really get the actual topic. I was also very emotional, always frightened unnecessarily that I'd hurt the feelings of someone because of a reaction I misunderstood. While a strong reader and writer, my mathematics, while initially good for my age, had a noticeable decline. From maybe twelve onwards maths made little sense to me as it became increasingly abstract and akin to reading a language I didn't understand and I failed all but two maths exams in high school... I'm also awful at organization and attention!

I have many friends now, and generally socialise better, but I still have issues. My language is usually over rehearsed and waffly, and I don't always understand when to finish speaking or when it's appropriate to add to the discussion. I have big issues with direction, knowing where to go, and still get obsessions with ideas, films, books and music as vividly and time consuming as when I was a child. I have never really felt as if I totally fit in... I never want to stop discussing and learning about subjects when I'm into them, and don't get why others want a break from it even if they're interested too.

I know that this doesn't equal a diagnosis, but for me it's at least a good start. Some things I have read are uncanny, and one of my best friends was shocked by how similar it sounded.

I was suspected as having dyspraxia for a while because of my coordination and how I seemed to not understand motor skills. I learned how to tie my laces at twelve, after years of effort, and how to read and write at two. I think that helps show the distinction.

I probably won't post that often, but I want to share my experience as reading what others have shared has helped me so much. Thanks!

Twinpeaks, I share many of your experiences. In elementary school I out read everyone, including a teacher or two. But put a division problem or a fraction in front of me and mind goes blank. I tried telling my teachers and parents that it was like a curtain came down between my eyes and my brain, or that if a brain were like a book, mine was missing the page about math.

I have habits, like a route to someplace and a different route back. Going out of order or a different way makes me feel odd and out of sorts. In high school play diagrams in football made no sense to me, so I played soccer. I couldn't kick with my left foot to save my life, and when we switched sides of the field at quarter breaks I'd feel awkward, almost backwards, if that makes any sense, going to the other side of the field. I can't organize very well, I'm not very social, and I won't get in an elevator if there are more than two or three people in it.

Since being diagnosed six months ago with NVLD, I can understand the multitude of failure over the years, but I don't see much in the way of making things better. Learn new habits? Go to a psychiatrist and a speech therapist who may have never seen anyone as old as me newly diagnosed? To be honest, I've given up. I'm worn out from fighting this thing for 50+ years. I think I'd be happy to be told I had stage four tumor. I'm just tired.

I have a question for those of you with NLD who have received supports for executive functioning. How do you figure out sequencing when it comes to daily tasks?

I have poor visual working memory and extremely slow visual processing speed. I find multi-step tasks, like cooking or even dressing, very difficult to execute efficiently without making any mistakes. I am prone to forgetting ingredients for cooking or putting on the wrong piece of clothing first. I find I can barely learn from routines and cannot plan on the spot at all. I also tend to go out a lot, have too many friends to keep track of, and underestimate how long things will take me, so I often neglect my academic and chore-related duties at home. I find I go stagnant a lot because I get too distracted to think what I should be doing next.

I find I learn best through auditory verbal information and slightly less so through visual (reading) verbal information. I have "tunnel vision" and am highly visually distractible and overwhelmed, in that only things that are right in my visual field will catch my attention but then I'll overfixate on one part of the visual stimulus and tune out everything else. I was thinking self-talk might be the best solution, but again I tend to focus on one stimulus at a time and will stop talking if I'm trying to process visuals.

Any suggestions? All organizational solutions I've seen require "visual working memory" at least.

P.S. I have a few friends with NVLD who have executive functioning issues and it would be nice to give them some suggestions, too.