Nonverbal Learning Disorder: What Is It And What Are Its Symptoms?
Developmental disorders especially affect school-age children. There is no doubt that they can be really harmful to your academic training, in addition to affecting psychological aspects such as your self-esteem and self-concept.
Among the developmental disorders that have been described, the best known have been those that affect the school curriculum in a more striking way, in addition to the social sphere, such as ADHD and ASD.
However, there is also a disorder in which, apparently, children do not have any type of developmental problem, and they simply appear to be clumsy or even lazy.
One of them is non-verbal learning disorder which we address in this article in addition to presenting its characteristics and warning signs.
It is a developmental disorder whose cause is due to neurological problems, specifically to a malfunction in the right hemisphere. Since it was first described in 1971, it has received other names: motor coordination disorder, developmental dyspraxia, procedural learning disorder, among others.
People who suffer from non-verbal learning disorder suffer from problems in different aspects, especially those related to motor coordination, visuospatial perception and understanding of the social context. All of them are related to difficulties when interpreting non-verbal signals
In the academic field, the abilities that are affected in this disorder are usually put into practice in subjects such as music, physical education or plastic arts. For this reason, and given the usual lack of importance given to these subjects, it is common that children who have this disorder are not seen as people who suffer from a developmental problem, but rather one of attitude. It may be thought that these are clumsy or lazy children, and that they do not give their best.
Also, it should be noted that it is not common for intellectual problems to occur in children diagnosed with this disorder, for this reason it may seem that when the problems actually appear, it is not because they have a neurological or psychological based problem.
Given its characteristics, non-verbal learning disorder presents high comorbidity with other developmental disorders. 40% of people diagnosed with this disorder may suffer from some language problem. Furthermore, in other disorders, such as SLI (Specific Language Impairment), visuospatial problems may occur, making differential diagnosis difficult.
Characteristics of the disorder
These children suffer problems, especially in areas related to non-verbal language, motor coordination and visuospatial perception
They have problems when acquiring motor routines, for this reason they are usually considered clumsy and arrhythmic. In addition, they have a slow learning rate in games that require several movements. This manifests itself in difficulties when learning to use a bicycle, swim, play musical instruments…
As a consequence of motor problems, it is common for children who suffer from this disorder to have problems when writing, making their handwriting not clean and clear, as well as disorganized.
Visuospatial perception is affected, showing itself in the form of difficulties when interpreting a clue from an incomplete visual stimulus. In addition, they may have problems when indicating the distance at which an object is located and its size, added to problems of visuospatial organization. Perhaps this problem does not turn out to be so important in the early stages of learning, but when reaching secondary school it can become more striking.
Additionally, there may be problems with tactile perception, especially on the left side of the body. This is related to the fact that the dysfunction is found in the right hemisphere, given that its contralateral part is the left hemibody.
One of the characteristics that cause this disorder to be misinterpreted as ASD is the fact that there are problems adapting to changes or coping with very novel situations. They may also have problems with space-time orientation, getting lost on the street and doing tasks more slowly than other children their age.
The great difficulty that gives its name to this disorder is related to non-verbal language. Children with non-verbal learning disorder have a hard time interpreting signals that, despite not being explicitly formulated, are of great importance in communication.
This is another reason why they can be confused with high-functioning autistic people (what was traditionally called Asperger syndrome). They may have problems with pragmatic aspects of language such as prosody and non-literal meanings. This has the consequence of affecting their social relationships, since they cannot understand playful behaviors such as jokes or irony and sarcasm.
Despite all these difficulties, It is important to highlight that children with non-verbal learning disorder have normal intelligence and, specifically, verbal abilities within the average. This means that aspects such as vocabulary, reading and spelling remain preserved and, therefore, they do not usually have serious problems in subjects such as mathematics and language.
Symptoms and warning signs
emotional affectation
At school, children with non-verbal learning disorder suffer problems in subjects in which motor and visuospatial skills are put into practice By suffering problems in these skills, but not in others such as reading, more related to subjects such as language or mathematics, they are often categorized as clumsy or even rude children.
These types of labels can generate a lot of emotional discomfort in the child, since he does not understand how it is like this nor does he do it on purpose. This, along with having problems relating due to not understanding all the social signals that are sent non-verbally, these children are seen as strange and lonely.
Therapy
If the problem is not detected in time, these labels will cause increasing discomfort, affecting their self-esteem and self-concept, and can be very limiting for the future.
It is because of facts like this that a correct and deep evaluation is necessary. Thus, if you are faced with a child with a non-verbal learning disorder, you can develop an intervention plan, in addition to providing teachers and families with strategies to facilitate learning. Besides, It will be possible to educate both teachers and families to avoid using negative terms, such as ‘clumsy’ or ‘lazy’ and protect the student’s self-esteem
