Marie Pacini MAT is an educational specialist at the Pineville office of Child and Family Development. Recently, she reviewed this article from Understand.org about nonverbal learning disabilities.

Marie shares that although “nonverbal learning disabilities” no longer exist as a diagnostic code in the DSM-5, the diagnostic manual used by psychiatrists and psychologists, the characteristics associated with it are present in children. Noticing these characteristics allows a parent or teacher to identify and highlight a child‚Äôs strengths and intervene in the areas that may need additional support.  

Determining a child’s learning style can be imperative to maintaining typical development and achieving academic potential.  

According to the article, these are common indicators of a nonverbal learning disability: 

• Talking, but not connecting
• Asking about things, but not exploring
• Strong reading and spelling, but poor comprehension
• Memorizing math answers, but not understanding the concepts behind them 
• Memorizing information, but not knowing how to share it

Click here for more expanded descriptions of each of these indicators.  

Our educators and psychologists offer psychoeducational assessments that determine a child’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as tutoring and counseling services.