[3] Proposed additional diagnostic criteria include intact verbal intelligence, and deficits in the following: visuoconstruction abilities, speech prosody,[4] fine motor coordination, mathematical reasoning, visuospatial memory, and social skills.
[4][10] Considered to be neurologically based,[11][12] nonverbal learning disorder is characterized by: People with NVLD may have trouble understanding charts, reading maps, assembling jigsaw puzzles, and using an analog clock to tell time.
[10] At the beginning of their school careers, children with symptoms of NVLD struggle with tasks that require eye–hand coordination, such as coloring and using scissors, but often excel at memorizing verbal content, spelling, and reading once the shapes of the letters are learned.
"[13] In the adolescent years, when schoolwork becomes more abstract and the executive demands for time management, organization, and social interactions increase, students with NVLD begin to struggle.
[10] While various nonverbal learning difficulties were recognized since early studies in child neurology,[30] there is ongoing debate as to whether (or the extent to which) existing conceptions of NVLD provide a valid diagnostic framework.