The challenges in finding and keeping employment for young adults on the autism spectrum are well documented, with studies indicating that 75 to 85 percent are unemployed. However, there are no employment statistics for adults with NVLD, although, according to Yvonna Fast, author of the book Employment for Individuals with Asperger Syndrome or Non-Verbal Learning Disability, a high percentage are also thought to be unemployed or underemployed.
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One hallmark behavior associated with NVLD is social difficulty, which can lead to anxiety. Often children with NVLD feel isolated and lonely. Social problems associated with NVLD may derive from difficulty with spatial and visual-perceptual deficits. However, the social problems associated with NVLD may derive from other sources, too. Many children with NVLD experience anxiety. Sometimes the cause is purely social, but many times it extends into other realms. It is not uncommon for children with NVLD to have obsessive tendencies or to have phobias and other forms of anxiety, in addition to social anxiety. This can lead to children restricting their interactions with others to avoid anxiety-inducing triggers. Read More
Children with NVLD have spatial deficits, or visual-perceptual deficits. For some this leads to difficulty in math, for others to social problems. The mechanisms underlying these social problems are not well understood. One hypothesis is that spatial and visual-perceptual deficits make it hard for children to interpret social cues. For example, they may misinterpret facial expressions and incorrectly determine that someone is frowning at them when instead the person is looking quizzically at them.
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I’ve always found it ironic that a child with a Non-Verbal Learning Disability can have such difficulty with reading comprehension. Some other time I’ll talk about why the “non-verbal” part of the LD label doesn’t quite capture the difficulties these kids have. Today, though, I want to offer some advice that can be used in school or at home for working on those reading comprehension issues
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