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Our son has always been the “smart, lazy kid” in school. His work is sloppy and assignments get lost or forgotten. But my “lazy” child works very hard. I understand that when you have a student in your class who sounds like an encyclopedia, it’s hard to reconcile educational expectations with disability.

Our bridge to diagnosis was Dysgraphia. From the beginning of his schooling there were letter reversals. Sentences wandered around the page without regard for lines and margins. The spacing between words was random, if it was there at all. The way he formed letters was odd – retracing and doubling back in ways that were so much more complicated than they needed to be. It was all age appropriate in Kindergarten, and maybe even first grade, but it never got better.
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I have ten children and one with NVLD. Anna is 13 and at the age of 10 suddenly many of the important people in her life started questioning if something was wrong with her because of her speech impediments, meltdowns when put under pressure in new environments, her tendency to stare back at you mutely when you asked her to explain herself. Unlike many NVLDs, she is not very verbal, though all her other symptoms track completely with NVLD. A friend suggested getting a prescription from our doctor for an evaluation with an occupational therapist. Our dear doctor suggested a blood test for diabetes (Anna was diagnosed with Type II diabetes; we believe she comfort eats), and to the occupational therapist and speech therapist. She was diagnosed as having delays in visual perception and fine motor coordination; her large motor clumsiness was attributed to her overweight. The speech therapist focused on phonology and was just getting into communication skills when we had to quit therapy because my husband lost his job.
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My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD at 8 years old as well as a spatial learning disability. I went to many national conferences and read every book I could to try and understand ADHD and learn how to be the best parent for her. We got the educational part of the situation under control but other issues arose with adolescence. For example, we invited 12 “friends” to her 12th birthday and no one came. First sign to me that socially we were not handling the situation correctly. I went into a search mode to figure it out. Came across a simple bound book written about NVLD on the Internet. Bought it, read it, cried….it was my child!!!
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