Zoom Autism Magazine Issue 3 Spring 2015 | Page 22
dren are in middle school or even high school. In
children, early and complex speech can mask the
initial difficulties of Non-Verbal Learning Disorder, which was certainly the case with Rosie.
Rosie by Any Other Name Is Still Rosie
Rosie, who is now 8, does attend mainstream
classes with the help of an aide. Her mother
says that Rosie’s clear and complex speech did
disguise her problems with understanding language, but she learned to cope by mimicking the
behavior of the other girls in her class and for
most of her early years literally took on the role
of other children and “became” them. Rosie’s
need to constantly be someone else as a way of
managing her social surroundings left her not
really understanding who she was. Rosie became
anxious, and her self-esteem was at an all-time
low. The combination of the two left Rosie feeling
angry all the time and unable to control her emotional outbursts. Whether or not they called her
condition Asperger’s or NVLD at this point did
not matter. What did matter was getting Rosie
some help so that she could better understand
her emotions, be less anxious and better control
her anger.
Out of desperation Rosie’s parents signed her
up for drama therapy,* which ended up being
a huge success for her. In fact, after one session,
Rosie told Joanna, “I know how to be myself.”
(*For more information on what drama therapy is, see
Leslie Burby’s article)
Perhaps Non-Verbal Learning Disorder and
Asperger’s Syndrome could be the same condition just diagnosed by different fields of medical
expertise? NVLD is diagnosed by neuro-psychological testing while Asperger’s Syndrome is diagnosed by interpretation of observed behavior.
Is it even important what “label” is given when
the issues are so similar? Whether an Aspie or an
NVLDer, what matters is that your areas of difficulty are recognized and supported by people
who understand that you have challenges. After
all, as William Shakespeare once said, “What’s in
a name? That which we call a rose by any other
name would smell as sweet.”
Helen Teasdale is a secret Nutella addict (Shh
… don’t tell) and a one-to-one Teaching Assistant for an awesome eight-year-old autistic
child. Helen also runs an autism support
group for parents as well as an online autism
resource called The Jigsaw Tree. Follow her
on FB or Twitter.
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Zoom Autism Through Many Lenses