by Diane Kennedy

Created on: November 10, 2010

Meet Neil.  He’s a high school sophomore.  His standardized test scores are always well above average, yet his grades dwindle in the D to F range.  He applies himself—in fact, works steadily during class time and doesn’t chat with other students.  So why do his assignments go astray from one day to the next, with no obvious rhyme or reason?

Neil’s backpack and binders spill over with tattered, half-finished papers, crumpled notices from the guidance office and last semester’s failed test he could have retaken for a passing grade.  He puts off any type of writing assignment and avoids art-oriented projects at all costs.  Neil worries incessantly about arriving in class on time and seems tense when he exits from school.  Though if asked, he’ll tell you he had a good day, no problems.  It’s only a day or two later that his parents receive a phone call from the dean’s office reporting truancy or the history teacher’s e-mail regarding the big semester project due on Friday, that Neil has barely started.

Neil lives in a confusing and frustrating world of overwhelming tasks and messages difficult to decode.  His days are stressful and uncertain from the moment he arises to well into the night, when he lies awake, filled with anxiety.  He tries harder than anyone else.  He has to; Neil has a nonverbal learning disability.

Nonverbal learning disability, or NVLD, as it is referred to, is an emerging phenomena in contemporary neuropsychology.  Rather than a condition limited to a specific set of unvarying symptoms, NVLD is a syndrome consisting of strengths and deficits.  Common areas affected include cognition, intuition, organization, processing and visual-spatial skills.  Those afflicted may have deficits in one, some or all of these categories.  As Dr. Kathleen Briseno, Assistant Director for Student Services and Special Education at Community Unit School District 203 in Naperville, Illinois describes it, “It is a disorder in the social area, such as understanding subtle cues in the nonverbal communication world.”  At this time, there is no known cause of NVLD, though it is thought to be genetic and related to damage in the myelin tissues of the brain—in other words, the paths messages take to connect and make sense of data.

Students who have NVLD may struggle with mathematics, reading comprehension and abstract ideas. 

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