NLD---Information on this disorder

Ever notice your child learning differently, responding/organizing information, communicating differently? We did. Found out through lots of personal research that this applies to one of ours. Life is not always easy, but it is joyous with this one! It is not treatable with medication or anything. You just have to recognize their weaknesses and work with them as best you can with love and patience and sometimes force them to think and act. Here is some basic info about Nonverbal Learning Disorder:
Its deficits are based in the right hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for understanding the spatial relationships between things. NLD manifests itself in children by making it difficult for them in several categories: fine motor skills, understanding what they see, drawing or writing what they see, remembering patterns in what they saw and organizing the information. NLD involves deficits in perception, coordination, socialisation, non-verbal problem-solving and understanding of humour, along with well-developed rote memory. People with this disability may misunderstand non-verbal communications, or they may understand the communications but be unable to formulate an appropriate response. They can be accused of being lazy or uncooperative. People with NLD, more than many others, fear failure. They may feel that they have to do too much at once, and then do not know where to start. This allows them to stagnate, and then do nothing. Sometimes they try to multitask and again end up doing nothing, which can lead to frustration. They may experience the world around them as a chaos, the actions that they must perform well and quickly creating a sense of helplessness. They can have problems with finding their way, remembering assignments. People with NLD can become confused and feel overwhelmed when the number and variety of nonverbal stimuli exceeds their processing abilities, especially when those stimuli must be processed in "real time." Knowing when and how to use physical contact and recognizing emotions in others can be problematic. They get lost, forget to do homework, seem unprepared for class, have difficulty following directions, struggle with math, can't read their social studies textbook, can't write an essay. They are hardworking, persistent, goal-oriented, and incredibly honest.

That is it in a nutshell. Some say there are OT things that can be done, games to play, ways to train them to think and organize, but they are who they are. Patience is key---sometimes a very difficult key. But the less frustrated they are, the better life will be. They just process things differently that the average person, and can get along well in life, just differently. The more abstract and chaotic the material/situation/information, the worse it can be, the more frustrated they are.