Nonverbal learning disorder: what is it and what are its symptoms?

The Developmental disorders They especially affect school-age children. There is no doubt that they can be really detrimental to your academic training, in addition to affecting psychological aspects such as your self-esteem and selfconcept.

Among the developmental disorders that have been described, the best known have been those that affect the school curriculum in a more striking way, in addition to the social sphere, such as ADHD and the TORCH.

However, there is also a disorder in which children do not appear to have any kind of developmental problems, and simply appear to be clumsy or even lazy.

One of them is nonverbal learning disorder., which we address in this article in addition to presenting its characteristics and warning signs.

What is nonverbal learning disorder?

It is a developmental disorder whose cause is due to neurological problems, specifically to a malfunction in the right hemisphere. Since it was first described in 1971, it has been receiving other names: motor coordination disorder, developmental dyspraxia, procedural learning disorder, among others.

People who suffer from non-verbal learning disorder suffer from problems in different aspects, especially those related to motor coordination, visuospatial perception and comprehension of the Social context. All of them are related to difficulties when interpreting non-verbal signals..

In the academic field, the capacities that are affected in this disorder are usually put into practice in subjects such as music, physical or plastic education. For this reason, and given the usual lack of importance given to these subjects, it is common for children who have this disorder are not seen as having a developmental problem, but rather as one of attitude. It may be thought that they are clumsy or lazy children, and that they do not give the best of themselves.

Also, it should be noted that it is unusual for intellectual problems to occur in children diagnosed with this disorder, for this reason For this reason, it may seem that when problems appear, it is not because you have a neurologically based problem or psychological.

Given its characteristics, nonverbal learning disorder presents high comorbidity with other developmental disorders. 40% of people diagnosed with this disorder may suffer from a language problem. In addition, in other disorders, such as TEL (Specific Language Impairment) Visuospatial problems may be present, making differential diagnosis difficult.

Characteristics of the disorder

These children suffer from problems, especially in areas related to non-verbal language, motor coordination and visuospatial perception..

They have problems acquiring motor routines, for this reason they are often considered clumsy and arrhythmic. In addition, they have a slow learning rate in games that require several movements. This manifests itself in difficulties when learning to use a bicycle, swim, play musical instruments...

As a consequence of motor problems, it is common for children with this disorder to have problems when writing, making the handwriting unclear and unclear, as well as disorganized.

Visuospatial perception is affected, showing itself in the form of difficulties when interpreting a clue from an incomplete visual stimulus. In addition to this, they may have problems when indicating the distance at which an object is and its size, added to problems of visuospatial organization. Perhaps this problem does not turn out to be so important in the early stages of learning, but upon reaching high school it can become more striking.

In addition, there may be problems with tactile perception, especially on the left side of the body. This is related to the fact that the dysfunction is in the right hemisphere, since its contralateral part is the left hemibody.

One of the characteristics that cause this disorder to be misinterpreted as ASD is the fact that there are problems adapting to changes or coping with very new situations. They may also have problems with space-time orientation, getting lost on the street and doing homework more slowly than other children their age.

The great difficulty that gives this disorder its name is related to non-verbal language. Children with nonverbal learning disorder find it difficult to interpret signals that, despite not being explicitly formulated, acquire great importance in communication.

This is another of the reasons why they can be confused with high-performance autistics (what was traditionally called Asperger syndrome). They may have trouble with pragmatic aspects of language such as prosody and non-literal meanings. This has as a consequence an affectation in their social relationships, since they cannot understand playful behaviors such as jokes or irony and sarcasm.

Despite all these difficulties, It is important to note that children with nonverbal learning disorder have normal intelligence and, specifically, verbal abilities within the average. This means that aspects such as vocabulary, reading and spelling are preserved and, therefore, they do not usually have serious problems in subjects such as mathematics and language.

Symptoms and warning signs

• Early language onset.
• Start of walking slow.
• Difficulty doing plastic work.
• Bad at sports.
• Fine motor difficulties: fastening the bib, putting on the jacket, playing an instrument...
• Clumsiness.
• Difficulty orienting.
• He doesn't like the new.
• Especially ugly and messy handwriting.
• Difficulty interpreting the analog clock.

emotional affectation

In the school environment, children with nonverbal learning disorder suffer problems in subjects in which motor and visuospatial skills are put into practice.. By suffering problems in these skills, but not in others such as reading, more related to subjects such as language or mathematics, it is common for them to be categorized as clumsy children or even rude

These types of labels can generate a lot of emotional discomfort in the child, since he does not understand how it is so, nor does he do it on purpose. This, along with having trouble relating due to not understanding all the social cues that are being sent non-verbally, these kids are seen as weird and lonely.

Therapy

If the problem is not detected in time, these labels will cause more and more discomfort, affecting their self-esteem and self-concept, and may be very limiting for the future.

It is for facts like this that a correct and deep evaluation is necessary. Thus, in the event that you are in front of a child with a non-verbal learning disorder, you can prepare a intervention plan, in addition to providing teachers and families with strategies to facilitate learning. Besides, it will be possible to educate both teachers and family members to avoid using negative terms, such as 'clumsy' or 'lazy' and protect the student's self-esteem.