Nonverbal Learning Disability (NVLD) & the Hydrocephalus Child

How Academic Achievement is Impacted

For a child with hydrocephalus, there are a variety of health complications to be expected throughout the child's life span. For this reason, parents who are caring for a child with hydrocephalus must understand not only the physical complications but also the cognitive and psychological complications.

While we understand, for the most part, the physical complications to the central nervous system, hydrocephalus is also responsible for psychological complications, such as ADD or ADHD, as well as mental or cognitive complications such as NVLD, or nonverbal learning disorder. As a parent who is struggling with the daily challenges of hydrocephalus, it is important to also really understand NVLD to ensure your child is given the best opportunities available in terms of academic care.

Nonverbal learning disorder, also known as NVLD, is a learning disability in which a very intelligent child will exhibit complications associated with learning new information and new tasks that are not presented verbally. This is to say, the child will be unable to process new information from reading or simply visually looking at information. However, if you verbalize the information, the NVLD child will understand it without hesitation.

In children with hydrocephalus, NVLD is most commonly the result of early childhood complications associated with the central nervous system that, ultimately, result in damage to the right hemisphere of the brain. Because this side of the brain is responsible for receiving and interpreting information through the senses, when damaged, the child is then unable to make those same interpretations. When NVLD is present, and complicates the hydrocephalus child's academic progress, often, complications associated with anxiety and depression will ensue.