After many years of misdiagnoses and going through many different schools, such as, Catholic, Montessori, Quaker and public school, I finally found the right school for me. A small private school tailored to my learning diagnosis. A private school that consisted of 25 students and 8 staff members; without this small private school I would not be where I am today.
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Having NVLD can often lead one to experience several challenges, one of the more common ones is expressing your feelings and needs. Sometimes this is due to not wanting others to know you have a disability and other times it’s due to the high level of anxiety you experience wondering what others will think of you. For me personally this was something that occurred often, and as a result it lead to some hard situations.
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One of the hardest things for many individuals with NVLD is their difficulty understanding social and communication clues. They are seen as either too friendly, too socially insensitive or both which makes things even harder. For me personally, even though I have come a long way, this is still an issue today and I certainly wish things were different.
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‘Mama Tried’ is a song by Merle Haggard, as well as a good summary of my mom’s determination to find an athletic activity that suited me, her neurodivergent, six foot tall, thin-then-chubby-then-normal, daughter.
NVLD throws a lot at you, and a huge part of this is physical coordination. My mom, an avid dancer and former cheerleader, tried to impart her love of movement onto me. But oh man, did I struggle! Tap dance was boring and focused on precision, ballet involved too much twirling and made me dizzy, and jazz required too much coordination.
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Reaching success requires not only hard work on your part but also having support from others in the process. For students with an NVLD this is especially true because of their diverse deficits and strengths. I can’t stress enough how important it is to remember the lessons taught to you by those who helped you through the ups and downs in life to reach success.
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On a Thursday morning a couple of weeks ago, I found my keys in the kitchen sink. I had been frenetically searching for them amid the “rubble” of the recurrent earthquakes of unkemptness that seem to erupt on a regular basis inside of my 690-square ft. apartment. I finally waved an invisible white flag of surrender when the all-too familiar catchy couplet resonated in my mind: “St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please come around. My _____ (keys) have been lost and must be found!” I had to find them quickly in order to drive over to a local ATM prior work, as a friend who cleans my apartment would be arriving in a few hours. (Yes, I will painfully admit that I have been paying for assistance in cleaning such a small space over the past couple of years.) After conducting a speech-language therapy session at a client’s home that evening, I finally decided to respond to the conspicuous illuminated low fuel icon on my dashboard.
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Growing up with a NVLD is hard for anyone, however, being the only person in your family who needs interventions can be both a blessing and a curse. Understandingly, this is frustrating as you may ask yourself why are things different for me and not my siblings? The truth is that this situation can actually be one that you will appreciate as you get older.
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A few months ago, I was sitting at a local coffee shop with my friend when I made a self-deprecating joke about my disability- something along the lines of: “Yeah, but people like me weren’t meant to do stuff like that… because of, you know, being disabled,” I paused for dramatic effect. For me, this was a typical joke, and all in good jest. I didn’t think anything of it.
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One of the largest barriers associated with having NVLD is employment. I’ve been fortunate enough to of had several employment experiences alongside neurotypicals. These various experiences have negatively reinforced ableism and the isolating experiences that individuals with invisible disabilities such as myself face on a daily basis. Asking for verification, taking longer to process information and doing tasks a little bit differently should never determine my worth.
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Having a Nonverbal Learning Disability affects a person’s motor, social, and academic skills. In a sense, the term is very misleading as typically we associate Learning Disabilities to just learning challenges. While learning difficulties are hard to cope with they typically don’t bring emotional challenges that those with NVLD face. Anxiety is often one of the biggest emotional challenges for those with NVLD.
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