The invisible disability: one of the best readers in your classroom might have a serious learning disability. Could you spot the signs?

Seven-year-old Helen is a whiz at anything that has to do with reading, vocabulary, and language. Easily the best reader in the second grade, Helen loves Sustained Silent Reading. Her reading and her vocabulary are at the high fourth-grade level. She likes to participate in class discussions led by the teacher, and is alert and focused on her academics in school.

Her teacher, however, has noticed that Helen has some puzzling areas of weakness. She's struggling quite a bit with math, and her handwriting and copying skills are at the kindergarten level. She dislikes the small motor tasks of cutting, coloring, pasting, sewing, and assembling puzzles. Helen is also having difficulty communicating. On the playground, she will frequently interrupt other children's play or conversation. She is extraordinarily clumsy, often bumping into people and objects.

Who is this child with such an unusual profile? She is an outstanding reader but has difficulty copying from the board. She has an enormous vocabulary but when she speaks, she manages to alienate her classmates. She has difficulty with small motor tasks but she loves board games. But she couldn't possibly have a learning disability, could she? Doesn't having a learning disability indicate that a child has "difficulty with reading"?

Nonverbal Learning Disabilities

By definition, students with learning disabilities have neurological deficits that keep them from grasping certain content areas at grade level. Students with a type of disability commonly known as a "nonverbal learning disability" (NVLD, or sometimes NLD) have a unique set of academic strengths and weaknesses. Unlike most other students identified as learning disabled, these students can start their academic career on a gifted track. They are wonderful readers, can articulate their thoughts clearly, and can memorize, categorize, and recall numerous facts. Educators have become aware that students with NVLD differ greatly from others identified with learning disabilities, especially students with dyslexia.

The Elementary Years

As early as kindergarten, students with NVLD are seen as "little professors," able to read, memorize, and articulate their thoughts very proficiently. These attributes make their particular type of learning disability frequently misunderstood by the professional community.

This is in marked contrast with the dyslexic student, whose reading difficulties are readily perceived. Students with dyslexia are typically noticed in the first grade, and diagnosed with learning disabilities by the second grade; thus, they are able to get remedial help early on in their academic careers.

The child with the more elusive NVLD has right-hemisphere neurological deficits that manifest themselves in four major areas:

1. Gross motor development. Girls and boys with NVLD are slow learning to walk, ride a bicycle, and play ball. When they walk they typically seem a bit off balance, and, like Helen, they have a tendency to bump into objects and people.

2. Visual-motor deficits. Due to right-brain neurological weaknesses, students with NVLD have trouble processing and remembering visual images, causing them difficulty remembering the shapes of numbers, letters, and geometric forms. Their fine-motor deficits include difficulties eating with utensils, tying shoelaces, drawing, cutting, pasting, writing, and copying from the chalkboard. Writing tasks are arduous, as these children have problems learning how to form the shapes of numbers and letters.

Students with NVLD are able to pay attention when the teacher lectures, but they have trouble seeing and processing visual-spatial cues from graphs, maps, and charts.

3. Communication, nonverbal communication patterns, and maintaining friendships. Communication experts believe that 65-70 percent of all information is conveyed nonverbally. Due to neurological deficits in the right hemisphere, students with NVLD often misread social cues. They are not sure when to talk or when to wait during a conversation. They may stand too close to others or speak too loudly.

Students with NVLD also tend to be "concrete" and literal--they see the trees, not the forest. Helen does not understand abstract sayings such as "strike while the iron is hot." She tends to take everything she hears or reads literally. In first grade, Helen's teacher saw her kick her classmate Sally and told her to stop. Helen stopped kicking Sally, but then kicked Bobby. Helen was surprised that her teacher got angry. "I did what you wanted. I stopped kicking Sally!" In essence, students with NVLD have trouble getting the deeper meaning of conversations and in literature.

4. Serious emotional problems. When parents, teachers, and specialists misunderstand the deficits associated with NVLD, it can lead to depression, anxiety, and phobias. Adults place a lot of pressure on their "little professors" to perform. Students with NVLD want to please others, and become anxious when they cannot do what is expected of them. They have no idea why they often annoy others. Adults may see their behavior as a deliberate plan to gain attention, without understanding that these children's right-brain deficits prevent them from comprehending social expectations.