Indigo had other visual spatial issues that seemed unrelated at the time. He put his face inches from others when he spoke, and he placed half his body on the person next to him when he sat down. His personal boundary issues became a major problem in gym class and the playground because he bumped into other kids and tripped them with his body. Indigo needed constant reminders and physical redirection to stay in his own space. I remember holding my arms perpendicular in between us. "This is my space. You cannot cross your space." 

In school, he got punished repeatedly for not respecting other children's personal space even when school evaluations revealed other visual spatial deficits like trouble identifying details in pictures. I told the special education team that Indigo had a hard time seeing basic objects in the sky. I gave the example of the red kite incident. The sky was a vast sheet of blue. Not a single cloud existed. There were no trees or other objects in sight. We were standing in an open field, yet it took Indigo five minutes of staring upwards to find the bright red kite.  

Despite all the evidence, the team concluded Indigo's issues were behavioral because the eye doctor said his vision was good (20/30). 

It took years and numerous visual tests to make sense of Indigo's visual spatial issues. When an ophthalmologist discovered Indigo's lack of depth perception, he asked me if Indigo fell down a lot or bumped into things. Eureka! Still, the neuro-psychologist was the only one who related Indigo's multiple visual spatial deficits to NLD.

Years later, a different ophthalmologist added strabismus to the list. Strabismus causes the eyes to work independently. The brain receives two images simultaneously (one image from each eye). According to the ophthalmologist, the brain literally shuts off (blinds) one eye, so it can process what it sees. This is another reason why Indigo cannot see objects like a red kite in a clear blue sky. 

In her article NLD: What is It...Really?, Patricia S. Lemer, M. Ed. Executive Director of Developmental Delay Resources explains, "Children with NLD have early histories of tactile defensiveness, vestibular disturbance and low tone, which preclude having well-integrated touch and movement experiences. To cope, they rely more heavily on what they hear than on what they sense, do or see. Audition and language skills predominate over vision and the more primitive senses early on. As language becomes ever more proficient, the NLD child becomes less able to use vision to focus on and give meaning to what he sees." In addition, Indigo relied on touch to process visual information. By invading other people's space, he could better understand where his body was in relation to others. 

I always knew Indigo's visual spatial issues were not behavioral. I just did not know how to fit the pieces together. It took years of verbal reminders, tools like graphic organizers and E.Z.C.readers and occupational therapies incorporated into his special education to help him.

The work has paid off. Today, Indigo still has trouble finding objects in a cluttered space, but he has gotten better with personal boundaries. He no longer sits on top of people or talks too close to their faces. He has trained his body not to trip people when he plays team sports like basketball. He still walks in a zigzag manner, wandering towards the right, but he has learned to move back into his own space when he bumps into his friends.

For people with NLD, clustered objects are hard to differentiate.

If you or your child struggle with any of these visual processing issues, speak with an ophthalmologist, as well as a neuro-psychologist to see if the issues could be part of a learning disability.

© Sera Rivers