Bonnie (mom) and Eric (son) Cohen-Greenberg
BCG Learning Center, Marietta, GA
Also available: Handout with all details.
The Source for Non-Verbal Learning Disorders (the best book to read on
this)
Bonnie was tested at age eleven and a 70 point discrepancy was found. her psychologist
(thought it was a tumor) and sent to neurologist who pointed out that it was
Minimal Brain Dysfunction. Now it is called NLD. She has found that father has
some NLD. It is not necessarily genetic, but can be.
Disorders to understand non-verbal information. There can be trouble with fine
and or gross motor skills. Some students fall out of their seats. No two NLD
people are the same. One commonality – visual-spatial perception problems.
After the presentation began the speaker introduced her son, a sophmore in college. He has struggled with NLD his entire life and share his experiences from a student perspecitive.
He has dysgraphic – poor visual perception and spatial skills
made it hard to fit words on page. Frequently he wrote down and off the page,
until a teacher taught him to hypen. It took forever for him to copy the day
and date off the board. Each task was very hard. In trying to complete the words
he would lose his place. Art projects took forever and were poorly done because
they combined fine motor, spatial work and details which were extremely difficult.
Reading in second grade was tough because he couldn’t keep his place when
the teacher interrupted to talk to the class. He was disciplined for not following
along. V ERBAL solutions always helped resolve the problems. In third grade
he became a class clown during art and didn’t try at all. Was tested in
fourth grade and had a 39 point discrepancy between performance and verbal work.
The teacher didn’t accept the testing and looked at it as a “motivation’
problem. The best strategy for him at this point was to allow most of work to
be done verbally. He began Middle School in a private school. It was tough in
some ways, but he did use laptop for much work. Teachers sat down to work with
parents. But then the teachers would not implement the agreed upon solutions.
In the end he was pulled out and home-schooled. He learned to use his laptop
effectively. In seventh grade he met with success in a public middle school.
Eighth grade was not successful. The teachers were very limited and didn’t
allow him to be successful. He attended a private high school for LD kids. Although
the school was too easy, he did feel that it was the best choice as he didn’t
have to look over his shoulder. The director of the school didn’t understand
his disability (he was asked to put a chair together, to hand copy music). No
one understanding NLD would recommend a student for vocational school. Eric
felt that teachers tried to understand. Graduated with 5 years of math, 680
on his SAT and a 44,000 scholarship to University.
Receives extended time on tests, copy of class notes, uses digital recorder,
and uses a laptop. College has been a challenge, but he is overcoming his weaknesses.
Not traditional NLD because his math/ social/and areas were not effected.
Infancy – move less, may choose not to move
Preschool – won’t be able to cut and draw, athletic skills are a
disaster (bikes, skipping…) (loved dolls)
Elementary – Great phonics skill, compensates for poor sight reading skills.
Hyperlexic sounding out everything kids are a red flag. Trouble writing, lining
up columns in math (graph paper is too small, must use bigger or turn lined
paper), poor social judgment, misunderstood by teachers and peers, depression
and anxiety. Seen as strange.
Middle School – bullied and teased, grades fall
High School – usually accepted by some peers, some may be slow to date,
but not necessarily, difficult time learning how to drive
Adulthood – dysfunctions maintain or intensify into adulthood. Some people
have components of it.
Several Keys to Success – must work harder, pay for support needed, turn’s
negatives into positives,
Question; What about geometry? Speaker said that was her most difficult class.
The best thing to do is to make it as verbal as possible. For the NLD kids,
talk. The more you can say, the more they can do. Create a formula book, when
you see this problem, do this. (Sort of our math memory journals) Look to accommodate
the geometry – measure all the differences. Some will not see the difference
between a square and a rectangle. In order to make it work have the child measure
and then no that when the sides are the same it is a square.
If you find yourself saying, “ I shouldn’t have to tell you that,”
then the student may have NLD.
Prepositions can be tough, left / right, think about how concepts are formed.
If they are formed visually, then the NLD student may have trouble with it.
- Some social problems can occur – student talks without consideration
or knowledge of when to stop, student may not be interested and may show that,
without knowing it, student may be rude (non-verbally) without knowing it, may
not focus on friendships
Strategies for interventions –
- Preferential Seating
- Allow student to type papers
- Have peer or teacher make copies of notes
- Social skill groups
- Regular counseling
- OT
- PT
- Direct instruction in Pragmatic language (65% of communication is non-verbal)
- Anti-Bullying programs
- Teaching Organizational Strategies
- Presenting Everything Verbally – Don’t Depend on Visuals
- Discuss, don’t argue.
- Use Mnemonics (if visual memory is weak) especially with geometry and geography.
- Reading comprehension can be weak because although they can read about the
words, they can’t visualize them.
Websites (on handout)
Impact:
This was very interesting because the young man with NLD spoke and the main
presenter also not only has the disability, but has overcome it and is working
on her doctorate. The strategies, although they aren’t applicable for
all people will apply in some places. Early intervention is KEY!