SuccessFULL With ADHD

Misnamed, Misdiagnosed, Misunderstood: Breaking the Silence on Nonverbal Learning Disorder with Linda Karanzalis MS, BCCS

• Brooke Schnittman MA, PCC, BCC • Season 1 • Episode 88

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In this episode, I’m sitting down with the incredible Linda Karanzalis, a nationally recognized cognitive specialist and advocate for nonverbal learning disorder (NVLD). Linda is on a mission to spread awareness about NVLD, a condition often misunderstood and misdiagnosed as ADHD, autism, or other learning challenges.

Linda breaks down what NVLD really is, how it differs from autism and ADHD, and the struggles people with NVLD face in communication, school, and the workplace. We also dive into the stigma surrounding NVLD, its unique learning and processing challenges, and how proper diagnosis and understanding can make a life-changing difference. Linda shares her own experiences growing up with NVLD, why she wrote her book "Misnamed, Misdiagnosed, Misunderstood", and how we can foster empathy and awareness to support those who think and learn differently.

 

Episode Highlights:

[0:49] - Introduction to Linda Karanzalis and her inspiring mission.
 [3:23] - What is nonverbal learning disorder (NVLD), and how does it differ from autism and ADHD?
 [9:10] - The challenges of diagnosing NVLD and why it’s often misunderstood.
 [16:27] - Why many psychologists and schools struggle to recognize NVLD—and how to advocate for proper evaluation.
 [25:15] - Key markers of NVLD in psychoeducational and neuropsychological evaluations.
 [37:24] - Teaching strategies and accommodations for students with NVLD.
 [40:00] - How workplace stigma affects adults with NVLD—and why empathy is essential.
 [41:35] - Linda’s advice for fostering understanding and patience toward neurodivergent individuals.

 

Connect with Linda Karanzalis:

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Linda Karanzalis:

Nonverbal learning disorder is a difficulty in processing information, mainly visual spatial information, but there's a lot of confusion because it overlaps with autism and ADHD. People that are on the spectrum have very good visual processing skills. People with nvld Do not meaning it is very hard to pick up body language, tone of voice, gestures. So people say a lot of things, but only 7% is what they say. 90 some percent is what they don't say. So the predominant mode of communication is non verbal, so if you're only getting 7% of what someone is saying, You're not really understanding them.

Brooke Schnittman:

Welcome to successful with ADHD. I'm Brooke Schmidt mint. Let's get started. Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of successful with ADHD. Today, I have a very special guest for you that actually the topic of what we're going to be talking about, nvld has been in the news a lot lately. Her name is Linda coransilis, and Linda is a nationally recognized leader and board certified cognitive specialist in non verbal learning disorder, which also is known as nvld, and she helps with diagnosis and treatment, and her passion and life's mission is to help others not experience the difficulties that she went through beginning in childhood. So she has a wealth of knowledge and experience. Her background was in brain based education, and she left her special education teaching position to start advantages Learning Center. Her center was one of the first in the county to exclusively meet the needs of neurodivergent students. Its focus remains to help students reach the potential through executive function training, social emotional skills development and parent coaching. She's a contributor of many magazines. She's won many awards, including the most recent award of 2024 Harrison Sylvester award. And she's been recognized as one of South Jersey's top 35 Superwoman by South Jersey magazine, and received a proclamation from Governor Whitman on behalf of the work with her students. Warm Welcome, Linda. Thank you so much. That was unbelievable. Thank you absolutely. Well, listen, you're the one who achieved all of that, so you should feel very proud of yourself. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, what I'm excited about here today is Linda and I met at the International ADHD conference, and she brought a topic to us in this woman's panel that is not spoken about very much, non verbal learning disorder, and yes, it just made national news in the Democratic Party. But this is a learning disorder that very often gets misdiagnosed, misunderstood. People don't really know it. People think it's ADHD, other processing disorders, learning disorders, autism. Linda, what is non verbal learning disorder?

Linda Karanzalis:

Well, non verbal learning disorder is a difficulty in processing information, mainly visual spatial information, but there's a lot of confusion because it overlaps with autism and ADHD and so but the key is that they have some of the same symptoms, but there's different causes of those symptoms based on brain based differences. So people with nvld do overlap with people on the spectrum. What we now know is formerly called Asperger's, but now on the spectrum, but there is a difference. So people that are on the spectrum have very good visual processing skills. People with nvld Do not meaning it is very hard to pick up body language, tone of voice, gestures. So people say a lot of things, but only 7% the research says is what they say, but 90 some percent, and there's all different kinds of research, it starts from 60 to 90, but is what they don't say. So the predominant mode of communication is non verbal. So if you're only getting 7% of what someone is saying, You're not really understanding them, and it's assumed that you are but you're not, because the meaning of the words can change the whole thing. Like the other night, I was with my friend, and I still struggle with this. I kept changing my mind what I wanted to do. Do you want to go here? I don't know if I want to do that. And then I'd say yes, and then I change my mind again. That's an ADHD thing, right? Sure. And he. Was just like this, I'm dizzy, and I couldn't tell because it looked like he was dizzy like this. I thought, Well, is he really dizzy, or is it because he's getting frustrated because I keep changing my mind? I couldn't tell because the facial to me looked like he was dizzy, but I could see it both ways. I just didn't know what one and then he goes, No, I'm not really dizzy. It's just because, you know, you're changing your mind. You're driving me crazy. So I knew that it was one of the two, but I wasn't sure. And that was the person I felt comfortable that I could ask. But could you imagine if I didn't know, and somebody said they were dizzy, and I was like, Oh my gosh. Are you okay? Let me get you a drink of water. You want to lay down? You know, they might look at me strange, you know. But people, you know, with on the spectrum, you know, they typically talk about road information, their affect is typically flat. There's not a lot of variation, for lack of a better word, I robotic. It sounds like they're not so interested some of them, I mean, we're generalizing. They're not so interested in having friends. They're quite content alone. Usually, their parents are really pushing them to be more social, and some of them do want to be more social, but and they also have behaviors more stemming behaviors when they get overwhelmed that you can physically say. So there's a lot of differences. Now, if somebody like that is in a work, you know, a workplace, and maybe they're very good at what they do, so people overlook their difficulties, because say they're very good at computers. So they just say, Oh, that person, you know, that's Dave. We know that's how he gets they understand that he's on the spectrum, but if you have nvld, they're not going to understand that you're not going to get that break and compassion because you need support, because you're so well spoken that they think you're brilliant, and because you have very high to superior verbal intelligence. But where the gap is, is you have very low it used to be called performance IQ, but now it's called perceptional reasoning, but that's very, very low. So it's a huge gap. So what you appear to be able to do, you may not be able to do, hmm, if that makes any sense. And there's other components, it's motor problems, executive functioning, social and math. Typically, not everybody doesn't fit it the same way the profile. So there's just new research that came out from Italy in 2024 that says Not everybody with nvld Has social problems. Maybe they just have the visual, spatial and the other research is so now they're saying from one to 8% could possibly have it. That's a wide variation, but it was they said. It was the criteria of the study, based on how they did it, another one in 2020 said, basically three to 4% of the population is estimated to have nvld, and that's just children and adolescents. So if that was the study, can you imagine how many adults would have it and not even know it, and it would be and misdiagnosed with, you could be misdiagnosed with ADHD. I happen to have both, and then on medication that does nothing to help the nvld. So there's a lot of you know issues, and a lot of neuropsych don't believe in it. They're arguing over it, but it's very close to being in the DSM with a new name, which is developmental visual spatial processing disorder, which sounds like we can't see now, the first one sounds like we don't talk so, but the reason they're doing that is to really differentiating it from on the spectrum, there's not, I don't agree with the criteria. There's not one thing about communication in it. So you're going to get a lot of practitioners not knowing how to treat it because the communication piece isn't, isn't in there, but they're trying to get it in to really distinguish it from autism. Like you. My background is in special education. I got my master's yes into disabilities in 2006 and we didn't learn about non verbal learning disorders.

Brooke Schnittman:

We did not. We learned about, you know, auditory processing disorders, right? But not in VLD. So you said something that stood out to me that many psychologists don't believe in that. So if you're doing a neuropsychological evaluation or a psycho educational evaluation in school, because if you are classified with some other disorder or disability, and you are getting a reevaluation, and you get a psycho educational it's interesting to me, if a psychologist doesn't believe in it, I know you wrote in your book that you have to really be diagnosed with something else to get accommodations and services in school.

Linda Karanzalis:

Right? Because if you get diagnosed with nvld, there's no services for that, because it's not in the DSM, it's not covered under IDEA. So you get into a situation where they need to get these separate diagnosis is like dysgraphia, because when you don't know where your body is in space, and I can give you lots of examples, you're clumsy, accident prone. So you could get that diagnosis. You could get dyscalculia, because that would be the portion of nbld with math. You could get social pragmatic, which would indicate social skills problems. So you could kind of get these individual labels, this diagnosis, but it doesn't happen that much because they don't either don't unders. I had two cases right now where the reports, it's obvious to me that the neuro psyches don't know what they're doing. When I see a neuro psych that understands N, V, l, D, it's a big difference. You have to find a very skilled diagnostician. So you're kind of in a boat where you know you want these other diagnoses, because some of the services that you get will help, but they won't help the other components of nvld, the visual, spatial and the way you teach with nvld is completely different. So and usually good teachers, you know, they'll work with you and figure it out no matter what. It doesn't need to be in an IEP, but they're so overwhelmed today, sure, you know, and they don't even know about it. Now, there's a lot of teachers reading the book, counselors, therapists. I'm hearing from people all over the world. In the book, there's a screening in the book where a lot of people are finding it really helpful in using it and taking it to diagnosticians. Now here's the sad part, and this happened to me as well. I actually thought that I was intellectually disabled. Can you imagine that now I have average to above average IQ. But why would you think you're intellectually just absolutely devastating. I couldn't function. I couldn't understand people. I could not communicate with people. I became severely depressed and didn't want to live. And the old research is people with nvld or have a high suicide rate like as people on the spectrum, it can be devastating, because with ADHD, you have the executive functioning issues just like nvld, but now you have more. But what's really sad is, I went for this evaluation, and I'm going to tell you my story, and then what I'm seeing now, and I thought that I was, you know, that's the dirty R word and but, you know, we don't say that anymore. So I couldn't understand why life was so hard for me. Why could I do other things, but I couldn't open doors. Why would I get lost in hallways and can't find my way around? Why could I not meet my potential? And so I decided, I thought there's seriously something wrong with me. I must be the artwork. So I go to Temple University. This is back in the day. Nobody knows about nbld. And even today, some neuropsych are like, the astute ones will be like, hey, this doesn't make sense. These scores. Let me research it. And this person said to me, I never got a report, would not tell me my IQ. And I asked because she knew I would have been devastated, because you do not show up with what your true IQ is, because of that gap, you're way above superior and verbal and way below in perceptional reasoning, which is a lot of visual spatial which we probably need to explain to people what that really is in real life. And so she just said, Look, you're graduating with honors. You're doing well in school. You're not intellectually disabled. But I didn't get the report, and she did me a great favor by not giving me a number, because I would have been even more devastated. So fast forward, I see kids. I had one kid a school, private school said they couldn't help him because he was intellectually disabled, but I started working with him, and I said, there is no and they wanted to put him in a special school, you know, with Ed kids. Well, okay, so for the people who don't know all these labels and acronyms, Ed is is emotionally disturbed, so which is a terrible label. It is. It's for people who are extremely behavioral and they're frustrated. And this reminds me of what they used to do for children with ADHD when they thought, you know, it was a lack of intelligence, and they would put us in the special classes as well the self contained ones self contained, right? So they wanted to put him in a special school. And, you know, when they go to those special schools. He wasn't really a behavior problem. They all lump they lump them all together. So it wasn't going to be good role modeling for him. I said, this kid is not intellectually disabled. You should have seen the things I had him doing. And I thought he was on the spectrum, because it was very quiet, he was very flat. And I realized that's not really. The true profile of someone with nbld. But because he was so afraid to say anything of communication, he weighed his words very carefully, because I'm sure in school, you know the research with you get 20,000 more negative messages by age 1210.

Brooke Schnittman:

Now, what is it? 10 now,

Linda Karanzalis:

10 so you can imagine he was, you know, people are continually getting frustrated with you, thinking that you're causing problems or you're defiant, and we can get into that. And I said, Absolutely not. I thought he was on his spectrum, but it turned out he had envy all day, but the way he was behaving was out of fear of other people's reactions. Because I'm sure the teachers, some teachers you know, are not you know, there's great teachers, and there's always ones that are in any profession, like doctors. So that's kind of what happened to me. And this was like 10 years ago. So right now, I had two cases, which are very sad to me, two kids are showing on the reports because they haven't had the right evaluation that they are that their scores aren't high enough so they can't get into special schools, because you can fight the school, right? And you can go to a special school for learning disabled, not, you know, not low or developmentally functioning or intellectually, but they can't because the paperwork isn't right,

Unknown:

and I've worked with both of them, and I know that's not what they are. They're not that low functioning. Linda, I know that there's a big misunderstanding and named and misdiagnosis, just like the name of your book.

Linda Karanzalis:

What do you do? Okay, the lendley clinic just opened up in New York this week or last week. That's Laura Lemley. She's the founder of the nbld project, where I'm an ambassador for them. And so people are gonna go there, probably from all over the country. I'm sure the waiting list is very long. You have to find and I'm keeping a list, someone that really understands mbld. They have to be very skilled. So these two people need to find somebody that can show on the paperwork that, yes, even though there's such a gap that they're not intellectually disabled and they are capable and have the right to go to a school where they can teach them.

Brooke Schnittman:

That's not for intellectually disabled kids. So if the child gets the diagnosis that's appropriate for them, of nvld, what type of services in a public school can they receive? No, you're saying that they can't get I just want to make sure I'm hearing this correct, and that the listeners hear this correct, because I'm trying to process this myself, so we know that they cannot be labeled nvld and then get an IP for that. But there's these unfortunate workarounds that they have to jump through hoops for right, and potentially get dyscalculia or have expressive language issues, right, right? So maybe they get speech or maybe they get an audiologist. But what are the common treatments for nblt?

Linda Karanzalis:

Well? Right now there really aren't any, because the research has to be done. We don't have enough research, but there is research from New Zealand, and I know from teaching and working at my learning center for 30 years, and that's part of why I left the school, because I started seeing these kids were like me, and there was nothing for them. So what you have to do is they don't learn from different you know how typically learning disabled kids learn from multi sensory ways. You know, what you hear, what you see, kinesthetic, they don't. They don't do well with that. That's overwhelming. It's one sense at a time. The very first thing a teacher needs to do is to verbally explain it, because, remember, words are a world, and you're trying to understand through language. Is to explain it, then the teacher needs to say, you know, kids don't want to, you know, raise their hand and be like, I don't get this. It's stigmatizing. Needs to say, what do you understand from what I said, repeat it back to me, and they might repeat it back, and they still might not understand it. And then what part Don't you understand? And really talk and work it through, and then work on those parts, because the details are coming in, but they're not forming anything an overall, global understanding. Wow. So it takes so much more work. It takes so much more work. And teachers have to realize this kid's asking a lot of questions. They're not challenging me. They are not challenging me, which it appears to be that way, or the second. Thing is, then you can bring in the visual, once they get the verbal, and say, Okay, do you see this chart? This is over here. This is here because they've already talked it through and then verbally explain everything to them, hmm. And so teachers aren't screened this way these kids might be getting in trouble, sure, right? Because they are appearing to challenge the teacher by asking questions that seem obvious to others and to the teacher, and the teacher is getting frustrated, right? Because they're already overwhelmed, and then it makes the kid shut down eventually and not ask any questions or become emotionally dysregulated and behavioral, because no one's listening to them and no one understands them. It's a terrible feeling. It's a terrible feeling. And then the Cortisol is released. And you know, when you're an emotional mind, you can't fight right like you know, and so it's a horrible feeling to be misunderstood. And so I had a kid in my class. I put him in the book Billy, and this is an example. So one day, he was playing with something, and I was like, Billy, you know, distracting all the other kids. And I'm like, Billy, put that away. Okay. Minute later, he has it out, and he's distracted. He didn't know what he needed to be put away, huh? Yeah, it was just some his play thing. And then I said, Billy. And I looked at him, and my body language was like this, with my arms and my tone of voice. I said, Billy, would you please bring that to me? And he said, No. After class, I said, bye, Billy. Why did you say that? He said, Because you asked me, you didn't tell me. Up all those non verbal cues, so he was literal, and so those kids might well he told me. He said, Because you asked me, you didn't tell me. He goes, You should have told me in the first place to bring it to you. That's what he's more directive, like, I need you to,

Unknown:

which is not how people speak most often, no, they don't, and they're the kind of kids will be like, No, you didn't say that. You said this, and they'll correct the teacher, which, then again, seems like they're being disruptive and challenging, right? If they have ADHD with it too, they're more likely to say these things, you know, because of ADHD, but the feeling that it gives you there, the mental health is so affected by this that it's devastating, you know. And I mean, my parents took me to people they were as clueless as my parents, and I became school phobic. I didn't want to go to school. It's just really emotionally very, very difficult when people don't understand. Like I always say, if you have cancer and you're in chemo, oh, you know, they're going to bring you food, they're going to give you a ride, but something like this, you're not going to get that understanding. Linda question for you. So you did in the beginning, talk about the differences in autism and VLD. Now, my stepsons have ADHD, one of them were wondering, what is the CO existing condition as well? Is it nvld? Is it autism? Is it anxiety? Is it, you know, is it? Is it right? And he also is the sweetest kid, the most outgoing kid, but he is extremely literal and needs directives and can seem like he's challenging you, but he's not. He just doesn't understand.

Brooke Schnittman:

However, he's an amazing soccer player, but he does bump into things a lot. So I mean, part of that can be his ADHD, like the lack of spatial awareness, right? Or impulsivity, right? So how do you weed that out with nvld or autism?

Linda Karanzalis:

Well, yeah, because, okay, you can have visual spatial processing problems, which means you have to have that to have nvld. But just because you have it doesn't mean you have nvld. So the way you do this is you get a skilled diagnostician, like ADHD is a rating scale, okay? This is specifically when you get that there's two scores that verbal and perceptional reasoning, the old way of doing it is, there's 10 there's 10 point of a gap. So if there's 10 points difference, that's going to show you that that's possibly nvld, now I work with people that might have, you know, very high verbal superior, but then when you look at their percentile for perceptual, visual, spatial it could be in the third percentile. It could be a 35 point gap. You have to look for that gap, which is kind of the old way. They kind of changed it. But it's up to the diagnostician to see. And make that decision. So you have to have a neuropsychological which is the gold standard, or psycho educational, right? Yes, and usually the school is not going to pick it up at all.

Brooke Schnittman:

So for the parents who are listening, who are identifying with the child Billy or with Linda years ago, right? Mm, hmm. They get the psycho educational evaluation from the school because they suspect something's up right there. The kid is failing or not performing. So it's either a parent, recommended teacher, recommended whatever psycho educational remind everyone of the two scores that need a discrepancy. There's a gap well. And the other thing you can do, before we talk about is, take my book. There's a screening in there.

Linda Karanzalis:

Psychologists are using it, psychiatrists are using it, yeah? So for people who aren't watching this on video. Name your book. Yeah, it's misnamed, misdiagnosed, misunderstood. It's endorsed by Dr Ned hallow. He's a you know, well known psychiatrist. He's like the godfather of ADHD i Father rock star, and he's a New York Times best selling author. So and researchers nbld, researchers from Columbia. So in this book, there is a screening which some people were telling me it's just worth it for that. Take it with you wherever you go. If the school doesn't understand what that gap is, look for that gap between perceptional reasoning and verbal intelligence, verbal IQ. You know, they may just look for the verbal to the perceptional reasoning. Some people may call performance, but performance IQ, but that's kind of the old way. And which one should be higher and which one should be lower, the verbal should be high and the perceptional would be low. If it's 10 points, that's a sign, okay, like I said, I can work with people that are like a hunt, like, you know, very high, superior range, but their perceptional reasoning could be, you know, in the 10th percentile and the 20th. So that's what you need to do, and take that to them. Will they diagnose it? I don't know. Some believe in it. Some don't, but the world's coming together now to agree on what it is you are entitled to another evaluation. If you don't agree to that. Some schools now I hear which I don't like, they give you a list, and you have to go to one of those people, you it will one of those people know, I think it's well worth the money to not put your kid through that again. It's a very intensive and exhaustive process. Every time you give it to them more than once, they're going to say, what's wrong with me? Spend the money and go to the right diagnostician. But not everyone can spend the money, because that's 1000s of dollars that not everyone has. So if you don't have the money, you buy Linda's book, and that's why I wrote the book. Everybody can afford that. So then you get that second evaluation. Okay, you give them resources from the nvld project. If you have a list, you thoroughly, thoroughly interview them, and you ask them, How many people have you diagnosed with NVL? Do you believe that nvld is a disorder? How do you diagnose nvld? You want to grill them until you find one that understands, because your child is not going to get if they really are going to label them as intellectually disabled, which is sad, and that doesn't happen all the time. They're going to be put in a class where they're not going to be challenged at all, sure. So you have to fight now you can go in New Jersey. It's called span statewide Parent Advocacy Network. Every state has one, and it's for free. And you can go to them, and they will guide you. They will go to the meetings with you. Hmm, that's great. And you can read the book. And I did that to help the masses, because I can't help everybody. Now, if you want to go for that other evaluation, most insurances will cover it. So I think in Noro psych now could be like $4,000 correct? So if you have insurance, you may be able to get that covered. A portion of that and this is really important for people that have school age kids. If you're an adult, you may self diagnose and you're not looking for school services, but you can go to the Division of Vocational rehabilitative services. You are entitled to an evaluation. Now it's the government. They don't always do the best job. Again, you're going to take the book, you're going to take the screening, you're going to give the nvld project. You're. Now, because of Gus walls, the world knows, and that's the beautiful thing about it, he has fast forwarded awareness for neurodivergence rapidly. So for people who don't watch the news, Gus walls is Tim Walsh's son, who was just diagnosed, who is diagnosed with nvld and came out and was talking about it right on the news. It's been, yeah, he's a he's 17, so his parents talked about it. You can look it up in People Magazine. Gus father was talking about at the Democratic National Convention, because he's the pick for Kamala Harris's VP, how it took. It was so hard for them to conceive, and they were so grateful. And Gwen and Gus and the his other daughter are his world. And Gus stood up and was like, That's my dad. That's my dad. And he had tears in his eyes. And it didn't take long for these national politicians, you know, that commentators to start picking on him, and they're using this as a political agenda. And my thing is, it doesn't matter, where is the humanity that's very concerning to me, that you want to win a politics at any cost. What type of individual is this? Well, that's the thing. So it sounds like from the stories in the classroom, right? Just people don't understand. People don't understand. And if we were to start with empathy and trying to understand impatience, right, think about how much better everything would be. It would be better because these people are marginalized. They can't get jobs. And the thing is, I have a statistics here. JP Morgan's autism at Work Program, on average, 48% to 140% more work than their typical colleagues than neurotypicals. That's a lot that's incredible to offer. They have out of the box thinking they can do things differently. And to me, it's just discrimination, because when we see all these people in society, like, you know, Steve Jobs and people that have made these great comfort contributions, they think, learn and do things differently. To me, it's just like the majority is just putting down people that aren't like them. You know, they want you to do things a certain way and totally and then people feel that they can't be successful in the workplace because other people don't understand. So, right? You're not doing it the way that you're supposed to be doing it, which is the neurotypical way, same thing sometimes in the classroom. So then they have to start their own businesses. But hey, Steve Jobs, right? Like all these famous people, I understand Steve Jobs grants can pass, but Right, they all have ADHD autism, other coexisting conditions, so obviously, there's a lot of potential that is unseen in nvld ADHD autism and many other disorders. Down right, superiority and judgment. All of our brains work differently. So just it's what the gays went through, what the blacks went through. You know, the majority always wins, but thanks to Gus walls, things are now. I mean, he's become a hero, and what I worry about him is, what kind of trauma is he going to experience because of this, but because it went viral, and, I mean, the teachers are on Tiktok, leave them alone, and the support that has rallied around him, he's become a source of a figure for people that can identify with so it turned out to be a sad but, you know, there was a silver lining in the in the cloud, right? And and so, but you know, the persecution? I mean, many are masking, pretending like nodding. I used to not my head. Yep, I understand. I And here's another example, and I say things that embarrass me, because if it helps other people. You know, it helps them. Now, I was younger. I learned from the school of hard knocks. I had no help. So I remember, I worked somewhere, and my boss said, how are you? That's a social pleasantry. What did I do? I told him, I'm very literal. Yeah, I don't feel good. I need and so I was very literal. And you know, other things that people will just, you know, people can be anybody that different. They can be really nasty, and so that very gullible, watch out for your kids. They do need to be protected. And some parents feel so lonely because others that don't understand are like, well, you don't, you coddle your kid, you know, and a lot of parents do that today, kids aren't it's a whole different way being raised today, but you have to let them learn. But you also, you know, you can't feel sorry for them and enable them. You have to constantly be teaching them things and talking to them 100% building these skills you. Know, so, but you have to, it's not an excuse, it's an explanation. Tightrope. It's a tight, yeah, you know, it's like with anything right, like we need to learn right, how to cope with the disorder, with the condition, so we can thrive and meet our potential, right? So yes, we can explain this is how our brain works, right? And we hope that people are going to treat us the way that we need to be treated, but we also need to carve the path for ourselves with the appropriate tools. And how do we get the appropriate tools? Is the question right? How do we get the appropriate diagnosis, is the question right? And they have so many talents. They're very well spoken, excellent readers. They like to research. They know a lot of stuff. They can do a lot. But what people need to understand is, and I think parents need to understand because they still don't get it. People read my book, and some of them don't get it. Usually they're not typical, but I want to explain about this weak coherence. And the studies say that people with nvld have weak coherence, and that means that, let's say that there's a puzzle. Okay, it's a beautiful scene. You know, there's palm trees, there's ocean, there's sand, maybe there's a hut, there's sun, when you see that put together as a puzzle, you see the overall big picture. Now, for someone with nvld, when they're putting all those pieces on the floor, each thing is discrete. Those puzzle pieces mean nothing until they form the picture. But what they see is, oh, there's a little color here, and there's blue and there's, you know, yellow, and they are taking that at face value. This is an analogy, and they're not putting those details to the overall big picture, right? So something like minds mapping might be hard for someone with nvld, well, actually, like something like, similar, like, do you know that program, inspiration? I love inspiration, yeah, former teacher, right? Yeah, I used it. You can do that to make connections and to see it visually, yeah, which is my map, right? Which is mind mapping, but

Unknown:

you can do that if you put us. I done that with kids with nvld, but I've talked with them. It's not just doing it, you know? It's like, okay, well, what's going on? Here's what's going on, and I'm helping them figure it out and and doing it like that. So that verbal piece is still involved in our process of putting the pieces together, right? I just want to comment on something else that you said about society and bullying. I remember when I first studied special education, just learning so much about how people

Brooke Schnittman:

treat people with physical disabilities differently than invisible disabilities, because they could see it, right? So they can understand there's something different, right? But with an invisible disability, so many neurotypicals, which there aren't that many neurotypicals, to be honest, but the neurotypicals might think, Oh, you, you're just like me. Look like me, so you should act like me too. And Jessica Hicks said, who's a researcher from UPenn, had found that in the workplace, like close to 73% of people had an invisible disability, and the other percent didn't, so we were the majority. So isn't that fascinating, right? I like that. But were they saying anything? Were they hiding it exactly? So there's a lot more learning and understanding that 100% needs to take place. And I've seen a lot of corporations like you had mentioned before doing more workplace training and people reading your book in the school system, trying to understand it. Some more neuropsychological evaluations that understand it, practitioners that understand it. So you definitely are on the brinks of this amazing material that can help people out there. And I appreciate your advocacy, because I know that when I first heard about your book, I was like, Ooh, let me think about her, my stepson. Let me think about this a little bit more. Is this what he's dealing with? And I know you had spoken to Dr Hallowell, who also questions himself. So you know, the more awareness there is, the more understanding of how your brain works, and then the more fine tune you can be to work with yourself and not feel as much shame because you're doing the right services and accommodations for yourself right and that's a big part of my book.

Linda Karanzalis:

Book, you know, you said accommodations for yourself and understanding. Because adults, it's very difficult. They didn't get the support that they should have had, but they don't really even know if there's a problem. So they're like, what's wrong with me? You know, you might think you're lazy or crazy, like that. Remember that book, am I lazy, stupid or crazy? By Kate Kelly, Peggy Raimondo, yeah, that was a great book for ADHD, you might be questioning your sanity because your reality is denied. No, that's not what happened. No, this and you know, so the book for me was I wanted to validate other people who feel so alone and they're like, What is wrong with me? And I'm getting such an outpouring of people that are just like, emailing, calling me, you know, Amazon reviews that are like, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And that's why I wrote the book, because I didn't want anybody to suffer like I did. Yeah, yeah. So Linda, thank you for your time today. And if you had one thing that you wanted to have listeners take away from today's conversation, what would that be? That would be to have empathy for people and patience and learn how to work with them and look beyond their behavior and see the needs, because when people are acting out, they don't want to be that way. You know, with any issue, they're just frustrated. And you know, if you think this is an issue, then really look at it, and try to look at it not from your mind, but from somebody else's mind, by putting themselves in your shoes, and maybe your kid isn't a behavior problem.

Brooke Schnittman:

I love that, but just empathy and openness, yeah. Well, thank you for being unsuccessful with ADHD today. If people want to find out more about you or get in contact, where should they go?

Linda Karanzalis:

They can go to my website. Or while I'm on Tiktok, they can go to my website, which is a mouthful. It's my name, Linda coransalis.com, but if you just put in nvld, Linda, it all pops up. And I also have a website for my Learning Center, which is advantages, learning center.com, which is spelled with two Ds. So we are actually going to put all of that in the show notes. So great. So for those of you who don't have good listening skills or didn't remember all of that.

Brooke Schnittman:

Don't worry. I got you just look at the show notes and you'll see that those links are in there. But Linda, thank you so much for your time. I'm so glad that we met at the conference, because otherwise I don't know how or when I would have found you, or we would have connected, and I would have, I don't think you gotten this goal of information. Yeah, right, right. Well, thank you for sharing your platform with me and letting me share what my mission is. Of course, it's so important. Thanks for listening to this episode of successful with ADHD. I hope it helps you on your journey, and if you need any additional support for you or a loved one with ADHD, feel free to reach out to us@coachingwithbrooke.com and all social media platforms at coaching with Brooke, and remember, it's Brooke with an E. Thanks again for listening. See you next time you.

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Brooke Schnittman MA, PCC, BCC

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