Reading with NLD: Understanding and Comprehension

  Good morning, I am your host, Jennifer Purcell, living with a visible learning challenge is the name of this podcast. And today we will discuss the challenges and triumphs of those who are neurodivergent living in a neurotypical world that was built for neurotypicals, not neurodivergents.  And. I hope that  this podcast will not only open up your eyes to the challenges that neurodivergents have, but also the ones that maybe neurotypicals have that we can share  with you, even if you're not neurodivergent.

And also I have interviews on here with  neurodivergent advocates and also  with neurotypicals that work with neurodivergents to see how We can interact with each other and how we can embrace our differences and similarities and try to,  understand each other and come to common grounds and,  be able to,  you know, just  kind of help each other  live a more harmonious and easier life.

And  so today's episode is going to be about what it is like to read a book when you have an NLD.  I still have all of these problems,  so, do you have, do you find yourself skipping lines when trying to read a book?  Or have challenges with not feeling tired after reading a lot at once?  Do you find that sometimes it's hard to understand what you just read? 

And if you notice, I actually started that.  script reading it,   wrong, because I wanted to show you some of the problems I have.  Even though I don't read academically anymore for school, I still have these problems since I graduated six years ago from college. I do find myself skipping lines when I read, unless I use my finger  Oh, underneath the lines so that I don't skip them, or I use my mouse to follow along, or I scroll down as I finish each sentence  or line.

That helps me not lose my place on the computer screen.  I also find myself feeling tired after reading a long article. It sometimes It's hard for me to understand what I read, especially if I read it too quickly or have a bad migraine while reading it.  I know I prefer to listen to audiobooks when reading a physical book because I can remember it better since my auditory memory is quite good and it's more enjoyable to hear it in the author's voice too. 

Also, it's easier to keep track of where you left off  in an audiobook than  And the app Audible keeps track of you. 

I remember that I had to go to my GSI's office hours quite a bit to ask him questions about what we read for the lectures because it wasn't easy for me to understand, especially with the sociology terminology.  Old English or weird writing that was being used by the authors. He was very good at helping me understand the passages, and I would record his explanation so I could refer back to them later when writing papers on those authors.

This helped me get through the difficult parts of writing those papers for my sociology classes in college.  Also, my mom helped me with writing and proofreading,  proofreading my papers for her. me in college. And my GSI Alex also helped me with improving my drafts so that they could sound better and be better and have the right material in them for the authors and assignments. 

So let's explore what challenges other neurodivergents have with reading, whether it is for school, work, or pleasure.  But before I do that,  I wanted to let you know that I am an ambassador for the NBLB project and as an ambassador, I do , share with them  the,  these podcast episodes and. They use them as blogs for,  their website and for, they also do research on NBLD and they also, , are working with the Columbia university in New York and are wanting,  doing that to try to get NVLD back on the DSM and  I believe they have renamed it to. 

NVLD to,  developmental visual spatial disorder  in order to have it be,   in the DSM, they have to do more research and be able to have more evidence on it and be able to, um, have that evidence be sound and, you know, show what NVLD or  developmental visual spatial disorder is and to,  you know, show examples of it so that.

It's easier to define and it's easier to get people the accommodations and help that they need in real life.  So the first article is titled, "Advice for Reading Comprehension at Home" by Bob Cunningham written on January 11th of 2016.  Quote, "Elizabeth Shorey,  who has a MED, is accredited. neuropsychologist,  clinical psychologist, speaker, and author who has over 25 years of experience working in the Canadian health and educational sectors, as well as with Canada's First Nation  communities. 

Although NVLD students usually have excellent decoding or basic reading skills, they often have difficulty with reading accuracy, particularly when reading Sight words that is they often misread or guess the word tracking issues Unintentionally skipping lines or words are common reading comprehension is often weak due to poor inferential reasoning skills Hence, they have a preference for factually based books rather than fictional books written language is Another common area of challenge, letter and or number reversals and poor handwriting, letter formation, or our presence. 

Weaknesses in visual organization often surface as difficulty writing on the line. writing to the margin and knowing where to write the date, name, and where to start writing their essay.  Spacing between letters and words and the size of letters are often inconsistent, and VLD students almost always prefer to print as cursive writing is so often difficult to master. They have difficulty with punctuation, capitalization, despite repeated attempts to" 

So I can actually really relate to that quote because  I remember when I was in elementary school, I  actually, my parents got me these bigger pencils that were easier for me to hold  and that was before I knew I had NLD because I wasn't diagnosed with NLD until college and,  I also remember writing really big letters  and, not really have enough space on the paper to finish my sentences sometimes. so they would break in kind of weird places.  , and I remember,  I still sometimes do this. I sometimes flip flop letters when I type or when I write words.  I do have poor handwriting. That's why I prefer to type actually.  And,  I also ,  quite a lot of times, have a problem with just writing really fast.

That's why typing is easier for me. I mean, I'm a millennial, so I grew up around computers and iPhones. So it's kind of easier just to type rather than hand write most of the time. I do print. I don't use cursive unless I'm signing a check.  And, one other thing that I thought was kind of interesting about this article is that they said that in the LD students prefer fiction, factual books over fiction books, which is weird because I'm actually the opposite. I like fictional books. I don't really like reading facts. I mean, I do enjoy history books, but I like fantasy books and fantasy books more than fiction. Nonfiction. 

 So the second article I want to use is titled "Advice for Reading Comprehension at Home" by Bob Cunningham, expert advisor, head of school at the Robert Louis Stevenson School. Quote, "I've always found it ironic that A child with a nonverbal learning disability can have such difficulty with reading comprehension. Some other time I'll talk about why the nonverbal part of the learning disability or learning difference label doesn't quite capture the difficulties these kids have. Today though I want to offer some advice that can be used in school or at home for working on those reading comprehension issues. Reading usually comes  easily.  early on for kids with NVLD.  They have no trouble with phonics, they develop strong vocabularies, and they have a very great memory for details.

This lets them get far into elementary school and often even into middle school before any reading troubles.  But when difficulties surface, they can be a really big blow because your child and parents have always thought of reading as an area of strength. Expectations for reading change,  questions become more abstract, recalling specific details become less significant, and recognizing themes and themes not explicitly stated, like the main idea, characters, motivations, and themes, types of conflict becomes essential.

The need to know the what and even the how is superseded by the consideration of the ambiguous why. A common way to think of this shift is reading is that it is no longer enough to see the individual trees. You also have to see the whole forest because seeing the big picture. or forced does not come naturally to kids with NVLD. This is a critical area that needs to be scaffold for them by teachers and parents. 

So here are four ideas to try.  Select nonfiction because it's more likely to grab your child's interest, but focus your discussion on the people or other characters in the book. Ask the same questions you would about characters in Avoid visualization strategies for important things to remember, which place demands  areas of weakness in favor of root language strategies that access cognitive strengths.

Try phonemic devices, rhymes, and lists. Try to.  Help with identification and understanding the main idea show your child how to build a case in other words work from the trees to the forest to build a bigger picture  after each section of the book or each Session of reading give specific suggestions for how to talk about the book with other kids and with adults Practice what your child can say to engage others in conversation about what's been reading."

So for that article,  I think those ideas are really good suggestions and I'm chuckling because It talks about trees and forests and that makes me kind of Think about,   a tool that my mom came up with in college when we were trying to,  do these little short paragraph  analysis of a sentence from  a,   Reading I would do for sociology, we would use what we call the stairs of logic and  we would use that to try to basically build a good paragraph that would,   basically decode  the meaning behind that sentence. And, try to support it with good sentences and good structure and good,  good flow and good. Grammar, and good fluff. And, in a way that made sense  and sounded good with reason and logic and We worked with the  trees and then the ladybugs and then the  leaves and then  so forth. So  that just this article reminded me of that kind of technique that my mom came up with for me in college.

That was kind of cute.  Okay. The next article is titled "Five Confusing Signs of Nonverbal Learning Disabilities" by the understood team expert reviewed by Sheldon H.  Or words.  ED  quote, "strong reading and spelling, but poor comprehension kids with NLD are often very good readers. They're strong at decoding, sounding out letters and words and word recognition, reading words by sight without sounding them out.  They're usually good at spelling and reading out loud, but they often have trouble with reading comprehension and with holding onto the meaning of what they just read.  They may struggle to understand the moral of a story, and they may have a hard time picking out important details, even in a simple passage."

So  I completely understand that article because I remember when I was in high school and middle school, I had a lot of Shakespeare to read. And, I, Did not like reading Shakespeare because  it was very hard to understand the  old medieval English that they would use.  But when I used Spock notes and they  would transcribe the English from old English into modern English, it was easier for me to understand it.

And it would say what that sentence meant  for me. It was like, Oh, okay. Now I can actually kind of enjoy reading this because it's easier for me to understand what I'm reading and it's easier for me to kind of get what the meaning is between the lines.  And  not that I actually enjoyed what I was reading, but it was easier. 

It was a more enjoyable process because I wasn't getting so easily frustrated by just trying to read one sentence or one word, like the, so the, you know what I mean? The last article is titled "Strategies for Success for the Student with a Nonverbal Learning Disorder" by Dr. Emily Levy,  um, originally published in Spins, Winter 2006,  and I've actually interviewed Emily,  Dr. Emily Levy. Liv  Livvy. I think I'm saying her last name right. Sorry if I'm not. Um, a couple times and, uh,  the first time I did it with just her and the second time I did it with her and her daughter and I'm  not gonna spoil that one that much because I haven't Produced that episode yet, but I think you guys will enjoy that one. And,  "so this article says students with nonverbal learning disorders often excel at decoding, but struggle with reading comprehension, missing the overall big picture and having difficulties with visualization and inference to improve their comprehension and inference skills. A multi step strategy is recommended. This involves identifying the and highlighting the topic in blue, the main idea in green, and the important details in yellow of the passage. Additionally, students should summarize the passage in their own words. For answering comprehension questions, students should distinguish between explicit, directly stated, and implicit inferred questions,  marking them accordingly to help focus their reading and inferential skills." 

So,    those are actually some really good tips from Dr. Emily  Levy because, ,  she is a tutor for students with special needs and, , she's got that right for people with NVLD that  highlighting is good to do.  And I would have,  I would have the teachers teach them how to highlight because I know for me, maybe this is. Not true for everybody with NVLD, but I used to not know what to highlight. I would highlight everything when I would read. So if you teach somebody what they need to highlight, what is actually the  topic that they need to highlight, and what is the main idea, and the important details, then It'll be easier for them to do that on their own and it'll be, it'll be easier for them to decode that and remember that. So  that would be one thing I would add to that. , so I hope that this episode was helpful for you, pointing out some areas where it's hard for people who are neurodivergent to read a book and for reading comprehension. And,  you know, this can also apply for people with dyslexia, ADHD, , on the autism spectrum and,  other learning differences as well.

And actually probably some neurodivergence as,  sorry, neurotypicals as well, who maybe are just slower at reading.  ,  so. Hopefully  what you can do with these episodes on  this podcast, Living with Invisible Learning Challenge, I would like to challenge you to journal about the  episodes and just see what you learn from them. Or you can share about the episodes with your friends and family and see what they can learn from them. And,  as always, I will post the links to the articles that I use in the description, the podcasts, and  please. Let me know if you know somebody who you think would want to be interviewed on this podcast or if you yourself would want to be interviewed, please email me. I have my email on my website and I also have it pretty much,  pretty accessible on Facebook and Instagram through messaging as well. So you can get in contact with me in those ways.