SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Nonverbal learning disability (NVLD), a poorly understood and often-overlooked disorder that causes problems with visual-spatial processing, may affect nearly 3 million children in the United States, making it one of the most common learning disorders, according to a new study by led by Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
The study, the first to estimate the prevalence of NVLD in the general population, was published online today in JAMA Network Open.
"NVLD is a huge and hidden public health burden," said Jeffrey Lieberman, Chair of Psychiatry at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute. "This important work might never have come to light if not for the support of dedicated advocate and their philanthropic support. We hope that these findings raise awareness of the disorder and lead to an understanding of its neurobiology and better treatments."
The name of this neurodevelopmental disorder may be part of the problem: children with NVLD are not nonverbal, as the name suggests, and have no difficulty reading. Instead, children with NVLD have difficulty processing visual-spatial sensory information, which can cause problems with math, executive function, and fine motor and social skills. "Children with this disorder might shy away from doing jigsaw puzzles or playing with Legos," says lead author Amy E. Margolis, PhD, assistant professor of medical psychology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. "They may have trouble tying their shoes, using scissors, or learning routes or schedules."
NVLD was first described in 1967, but compared with other learning disorders it has received little attention. There's little consensus among physicians on how to diagnose the disorder, and it is not included in the current edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The cause of NVLD is not known and there are no treatments.
Few parents have heard of NVLD. "Most parents recognize that a child who isn't talking by age two should be evaluated for a learning disorder. But no one thinks twice about kids who have problems with visual-spatial tasks," says Margolis.
[...] Margolis advises parents to seek evaluation for children with symptoms of NVLD. "Diagnosis can be accomplished using basic assessment tools," says Margolis. "It doesn't have to involve complex and costly neuropsychological testing. We envision that all clinicians who use DSM5 will be able to use our new criteria to determine who may meet criteria. They can then send patients for basic psychological testing that is always available through schools to identify/quantify a problem with visual-spatial processing."
-- submitted from IRC
Journal Reference:
Amy E. Margolis, Jessica Broitman, John M. Davis, Lindsay Alexander, Ava Hamilton, Zhijie Liao, Sarah Banker, Lauren Thomas, Bruce Ramphal, Giovanni A. Salum, Kathleen Merikangas, Jeff Goldsmith, Tomas Paus, Katherine Keyes, Michael P. Milham. Estimated Prevalence of Nonverbal Learning Disability Among North American Children and Adolescents. JAMA Network Open, 2020; 3 (4): e202551 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.2551
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 29 2020, @05:22PM (22 children)
If it's shared by a large percentage of the population is it a disability or a character trait?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @05:32PM (1 child)
About 50 percent of the populations get lost while driving/walking, so is a little more common than character traits.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 29 2020, @06:49PM
Um, traits don't have an upper limit on the number of people who can share them. Having an internal skeleton is a trait. So is having Rh-null for a blood type.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 29 2020, @05:50PM (3 children)
I've been fairly shocked by the "normalization" or quasi-mainstreaming of disabilities in our local high schools. In the early 1980s we had something less than 3% of our graduating class of ~200 who would admit to any kind of disability, and them only because it was absolutely undeniable - Down's is hard to mask. Most everyone else was running around in hard denial mode that anyone outside that group could be "unable" to do anything - all you had to do was want it bad enough, try hard enough, anybody could do anything. Yeah, delusional.
Fast forward 40 years and now we've got huge numbers running around with IEPs, identified needs, deficiencies, etc. I'm sure there's some "special flower" syndrome going on in there, people who could do better with less support, but at least some of the system seems to be acknowledging that there are real differences between people that can't be erased by hard work and a strong will.
Look out, maybe 40 years from now a University president can say something like "black people are better at athletics" without being forced to resign after saying it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @12:32AM (2 children)
They aren't better at athletics, they're more likely to focus on that, because there's less resistance to black athletes.The cost of entry is also, often much less than other ways of succeeding. Also, keep in mind that it's not all sports, it's mostly sports that are cheap to get into, black hockey players, golfers and tennis players remain uncommon at the professional level.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @04:55PM (1 child)
Why is tennis any harder to get into than basket ball, the court size is about the same, and a racket and balls doesn't cost much more than a basket ball...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 01 2020, @01:30AM
Membership in tennis clubs (where serious competition starts) is expensive. It's social tradition, nothing about the physical aspects of the sport (or court, or equipment) itself.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RS3 on Wednesday April 29 2020, @06:06PM
The answer depends on who can capitalize on it.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 29 2020, @06:17PM (5 children)
8% of men are colorblind, I'm struggling to see that as a character trait.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 29 2020, @06:45PM
Funny thing, that. Colorblind people are better at spotting motion than those with "normal" vision. It could very well have been an affirmatively selected trait back when hunting was crucial and colors were largely irrelevant.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday April 29 2020, @08:03PM (3 children)
Perhaps it's written in color?
:-}
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 01 2020, @01:35AM (2 children)
My wife endlessly retells the story of how I called a maroon awning purple, and how obviously different the two colors are. Now, if I focus hard on my pantone pallettes I can tell maroon from purple, but to my eyes they're really close - apparently not to hers.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday May 01 2020, @03:01AM (1 child)
I guess I've been around many artistic women, but I've observed that most women seem to see, or at least process color much more richly than most men. In other words, most men are somewhat colorblind compared to most women I guess. Rather than chide you for having a slight bit of a known trait, perhaps she could revel in her keen color perception?
I see color fairly well, but my dad was somewhat colorblind, and he got some exasperated mocking from time-to-time. I definitely see a big difference between maroon and purple, but I might blurt out "purple"- just because it's a simpler word to bring up and into the speech flow.
Ever take any of those color perception tests?
Okay, this one is infuriating. I'll tell you my score if you tell me yours: https://www.xrite.com/hue-test [xrite.com]
Ever hear of these? I don't know much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EnChroma [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 01 2020, @12:30PM
There are proven genetic biases for better color perception with two X chromosomes, then there are the freaks with four color channels (extending into the UV range) - they also tend to be female.
Until presbyopia set in, I had 20-10 or better vision on the eye tests, and I think some of that comes down to better high resolution contrast perception, which probably is a trade off for less color perception.
I scored 0 (perfect) in that test, but I'd swear that several of those squares were identical and I was just getting lucky... makes me want to screen cap it and check the hues. Also, fun fact, LCD monitors often have only 6 bits of RGB display capability, even though they take 8 bit input values.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @06:59PM
So if we cut everyone's right leg off then every newborn child for the next many years will be disabled freaks with two legs?
Hmmmm
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday April 29 2020, @09:23PM (7 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday May 01 2020, @03:38AM (6 children)
Can't throw a javelin? How are you at catching them? :)
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday May 01 2020, @07:11AM (5 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday May 01 2020, @03:49PM (1 child)
It ends up being best determined by statistics, needing a large sample-size. It's much easier than one would imagine. There are a few people on SN who need to be convinced to give it a try. We'll tell them about the awards, street cred, etc. :-}
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday May 02 2020, @08:05AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday May 01 2020, @07:50PM (2 children)
The mean would be 0/0. And the variance, adjusted for small-sample correction, would be 0/-1.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday May 02 2020, @08:00AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday May 02 2020, @02:18PM
Exactly right!