Students with Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities (NVLD)
Strategic Interventions and Support for NVLD Students in NYC
When traditional educators and specialists address learning disabilities, the focus tends to center on disorders such as dyslexia that involve language and verbal skills. These may perhaps be the most obvious learning disabilities.
However, many students struggle with non-verbal learning disabilities or NLVDs that can manifest in a variety of ways. These conditions are often overlooked, even though they disrupt the learning process just as severely as the more common disorders that cause difficulty with reading, writing, and number-based information.
To ensure that students with unique non-verbal learning challenges are prepared to succeed academically and socially, NVLD schools in NYC need to address the factors that contribute to learning difficulties, as well as the symptoms that manifest at different phases of a student’s academic journey. At Academics West, our team draws on training and experience across multiple disciplines to combine evidence-based clinical practice with research-based educational interventions that enable students with non-verbal learning disabilities to thrive.
Understanding the Range of Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities
Non-verbal learning disabilities and disorders include a wide array of conditions that impair learning in ways not connected with speech or words. For instance, difficulties in problem-solving, recognizing social cues, or completing tasks that involve visual spacing are all non-verbal disabilities. But there are other problems caused by NVLDs that are unexpected and often seem unconnected.
Students might have difficulty with tasks as diverse as:
- Comprehending the messages conveyed by facial expressions and body language
- Physical coordination, including holding a pencil and writing legibly
- Telling a story in sequential order
- Understanding advanced math concepts
- Regulating emotions
- Planning and organizing
- Remembering information
- Following directions
These types of skills—which come so naturally to many people that they are never formally taught—each require the ability to distinguish patterns and determine how to apply the concept to new situations. When students have difficulty recognizing patterns or transferring the concept to different situations, they struggle with tasks, which often makes them appear lazy, disinterested, or unintelligent. In reality, they are none of these things, but others’ perceptions can be tremendously harmful to confidence and self-esteem, leading to defeatist attitudes.
Why the Mission of NVLD Schools in NYC is So Critical
Non-verbal learning disorder is not a condition that has been given an official medical diagnosis. It is not recognized in the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR). Instead, students may be diagnosed as having ADHD or autism. But from an academic and mental health perspective, it is important to address and overcome the symptoms and patterns that are caused by non-verbal learning disabilities.
For example, consider a student diagnosed with ADHD who generally has great difficulty staying focused and keeping organized. An examination of the non-verbal learning disabilities involved can explain why that student is inattentive and unfocused. The student may not understand what the class is reading or discussing, so it becomes nearly impossible to pay attention. Similarly, a student experiencing difficulty with communication and socialization who is diagnosed as autistic may be struggling with social skills because they are unable to recognize patterns in body language, facial expression, and other means of non-verbal communication.
Schools that focus on helping students with non-verbal learning disabilities overcome problems provide these students and their families with support that helps them succeed academically and socially. The team at Academics West combines both therapeutic treatment and mental health diagnoses with educational strategies, to fully engage the student and help them change over time. Our students not only perform better than before—they tend to find school an exciting and uplifting experience that they look forward to each day.
Finding the Right Strategies to Address NVLDs
Non-verbal learning disabilities tend to manifest in five different ways. While some students may struggle with deficiencies in one or two areas, others may need assistance overcoming challenges in all five areas:
- Executive functions – This may be the most common category of non-verbal learning disabilities. Executive functioning abilities are self-regulatory abilities that enable students to solve problems, make decisions, and execute tasks. They serve as the building blocks for a host of skills critical to functioning in a variety of settings.
- Social interactions – Difficulties in reading nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions and body language, prevent many students from understanding what is happening in social settings. They often have trouble determining appropriate behavior. This can lead to ostracization by other students and a crisis of self-confidence for the student struggling with this form of NVLD.
- Visual-spatial awareness – Students who struggle with understanding visual imagery and spatial information presented visually have difficulty perceiving and evaluating information presented visually. They may have trouble comprehending the spatial relationships between objects or understanding where they are in space. This can make their physical movements awkward and uncoordinated.
- Higher-order thinking – When a non-verbal learning disability involves higher-order comprehension, students have difficulty understanding the relationships among information and how to process and use it. For instance, they may struggle to identify the main idea of what they’ve read and to explain the details that support it.
- Conceptual math – While many students with NVLDs excel at basic math, when they have difficulty identifying patterns and applying formulas, they struggle tremendously with more advanced math concepts.
To be effective, NVLD schools in NYC must be prepared to assess students’ needs in each of these areas. At Academics West, we frequently reevaluate students’ strengths and struggles in these and other facets of their learning arsenal so we can develop the most effective strategies to maintain forward progress.
Learn More About the Benefits a High-Support School Can Provide for NVLD Students
Students with non-verbal learning disabilities need to work hard to develop skills that evolve naturally for others with little effort, and that is why finding the right place among NVLD schools in NYC is so critical. It is vitally important to choose a school that can identify the areas where gaps in the learning process may exist and take the appropriate steps to bridge them, so students can overcome challenges and be prepared for college and beyond.
As a college preparatory school, Academics West is firmly committed to addressing the full range of every student’s needs so that they are ready for college should they choose to pursue that form of higher education. To learn more about how the support and remediation strategies at Academics West can prove advantageous for your family, we invite you to contact us online or call us at 917-970-2348 today.