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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Just for a moment, imagine spending the first 18 years of your life unaware that Nonverbal Communication exists. While going to school, playing sports, and attending family events, you are unaware of all non-verbal communication. Imagine, you are eating dinner with your entire family on your birthday. Everything’s going smoothly, until you mention how funny this cat video you saw on the internet was. As you explain, you do not notice the disinterest in the faces of your friends and family.
Nobody has verbally stated that they did not think the video was funny. So you assume everyone is enjoying your video explanation, when really, they’re not. While communicating you are not making any eye contact, but instead you are looking around the room, because all of your focus is on explaining the cat video verbally. You pay little attention to your body language because you do not even realize it exists as a form of communication.
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I have nonverbal learning disability. Well, not officially. Officially, I still have the diagnosis I was given more than 50 years ago: Minimal brain dysfunction. But NVLD is much more accurate. So, I’m disabled. But I’m also abled. Now, that word “abled” gets a little red line underneath to tell me that it’s not a word. Hey! Spell check! How can you lack something you can’t have?
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In early 2010 my mom was doing some research online and found out about a learning disability called nonverbal learning disability. Many of the traits that individuals with this disability had were similar to those that I possessed. For example, those with NLD are often very black and white and literal in thinking which is definitely me and have poor spatial sense which is me to a tee. They can be prone to anxiety and depression due to difficulties with the subtle nuances of social communication such as nonverbal communication, body language, and social cues.
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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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