Syndrome of nonverbal learning disabilities: The final common pathway of white-matter disease/dysfunction?

Abstract

The nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) syndrome is described, and a model designed to encompass its complex manifestations is derived on the basis of the theory of Goldberg and Costa (1981), as extended by Rourke (1982). The commonality exhibited by children and adolescents suffering from a variety of types of neurological disease, disorder, and dysfunction is viewed as their shared deficiencies in the white- matter functions necessary for intermodal integration. Some theoretical and clinical implications of this model are discussed, including the possibility that there may be a continuum of developmental neurological disease and neuropsychiatric disturbance characterized by variations in the severity of the NLD syndrome and its hypothesized relationship to white-matter dysfunction.