Dear Therapist:

I am a 17 year old girl in a mainstream school, who has been through "tons" of therapy in my life. Language/speech therapy, O.T., P.T., Social skills—you name it. I have never gotten a clear diagnosis, but upon reading your article (January 25,2019) and then recently reading a book by Yated columnist Rivka Schonfeld, it appears to my parents and I that I really fall under the category of Non Verbal Learning Disability, being that Autism Spectrum Disorder  has been ruled out, but I still find socializing difficult mostly due to my lack of "body language" awareness. Also, although I scored good marks in elementary, in high school I am finding it quite challenging. I read that these are 2 symptoms. Any more info or suggestions or directions? Thank you!

Response:

I am no expert on learning disorders, but I can make a few brief points. Every disorder is essentially a collection of symptoms, and diagnosis can be arbitrary. Often, someone who is considerably debilitated due to symptoms of a disorder cannot be diagnosed (for instance due to a low number of symptoms), while someone else who is relatively fine can be diagnosed. So the particular diagnosis—or the presence of any diagnosis—is not necessarily very meaningful.

What is often more meaningful are the symptoms themselves. Everyone has “symptoms.” Who has never felt depressed, anxious, obsessive, angry, impulsive, or at least one of the multitudes of symptoms delineated in the diagnostic manual? As therapists, we treat problems, not diagnoses. As individuals, we all deal with our issues, and address specific problems.

What you should address are the problems that you’re having. The “NVLD” designation is likely helpful practically only in that it can help you to identify other areas that others tend to report in conjunction with those that you have already identified.

It sounds like your focus should be on body language interpretation, and on the areas in which this affects you. Remember that we ALL have issues, and that academic and social factors are often highly magnified in high school. Very many people who have glided through elementary school have had trouble in high school. It is important to acknowledge this, and to distinguish “normal” high school—and life—issues from those related to your trouble learning.

Today, everything is diagnosable. I don’t mean to suggest that nothing should be identified and worked on. But it does mean that just as we need to identify areas of concern, we also need to identify areas of normalcy. You may have trouble picking up on certain social cues, and certain types of learning may be difficult for you. However, some of these areas may be related to the normal course of life, learning, and discovery that we all experience. If you have trouble distinguishing one from the other, a therapist (or perhaps someone else in your life) can help you to parse these out.

-Yehuda Lieberman, LCSW

  psychotherapist in private practice

 Brooklyn, NY   |   Far Rockaway, NY

 author of Self-Esteem: A Primer

 www.ylcsw.com / 718-258-5317

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