Responding to Students with Nonverbal Learning Disabilities

Abstract

COUNCIL FOR EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN Would you know whether a student of yours has the syndrome of nonverbal learning disability (NLD)? If you were included on a planning committee for this student’s individualized education program (IEP), what would you recommend or plan? Recognizing NLD and providing responsive educational programming for affected students are critical if we are to ameliorate the potentially devastating course of this disorder (Fletcher, 1989; see box, “What Is NLD?”). This article provides an overview of the NLD syndrome to assist educators in identifying this frequently overlooked condition and to describe educational strategies, or interventions, for the special challenges experienced by students with this disability. An NLD Profile Distinctive patterns of strengths and weaknesses in neuropsychological, academic, and social-emotional functioning characterize people with NLD (GrossTsur, Shalev, Manor, & Amir, 1995; Rourke, 1988, 1989; Rourke & Tsatsanis, 2000). One of the hallmark characteristics is stronger verbal than nonverbal cognitive abilities, as evidenced by higher Verbal than Performance IQ scores. This pattern of cognitive strengths and weaknesses extends to attention and memory skills, and students with NLD perform better on such tasks when information is presented verbally rather than through visual or tactile modes (Fisher & DeLuca, 1997; Landau, Gross-Tsur, Auerbach, Van der Meere, & Shalev, 1999; see Table 1). Students with NLD also demonstrate weak psychomotor and perceptual motor skills that persist across time (Rourke, 1988). They tend to be physically awkward and have particular difficulty acquiring gross motor skills that are necessary for age-appropriate self-care and play tasks, such as dressing, skipping, jumping rope, or riding a bicycle (Casey & Strang, 1994). In addition, students with NLD perform significantly below average on standardized motor and visual motor tests (Gross-Tsur et al., 1995) T EA C H IN G E xc ep ti on al C hi ld re n , Vo l. 34 , N o. 6 , pp . 813 . C op yr ig ht 2 00 2 C EC . Responding to Students with Nonverbal Learning Disabilities