NLD, NVLD

SELD ("social-emotional learning disability") is a cognitive deficit or group of cognitive deficits which appears to be associated with lack of theory of mind or serious deficits in it. It may be said that "land of emotions" is an "unknown land" for people with SELD. It occurs for example in childhood autism (Kanner's syndrome) and "classic" forms of Asperger's syndrome.

Symptoms of SELD may include:
- lack of empathy (especially cognitive one) and (or) compassion,
- lack of understanding of lying and intentions,
- inability to mentalise emotional states of others,
- lack of understanding why something is offensive for other person,
- "painful" honesty,
- being very naive and gullible,
- lack of pragmatic skills,
- literal interpretations,
- policing behaviors (applying the same rules to everybody regardless of the circumstances),
- thinking that other people thinking just as I (and have, for example, the same interests as I),
- lack of interest in rivalisation and (or) understanding of it (why someone is happy when is a winner?),
- poor understanding of social situations,
- poor understanding of motives of other people,
- alexithymia,
- lack of common sense in social situations (for example taking toys of other child because a child with SELD thought that other child will like "me" because of it) - idiosyncratic and "illogical" behaviors in social interactions,
- "intense" imitative behaviors (associated with cognitive deficits in socio-emotional area?),
- lack of knowledge about emotion which should be felt in particular situation (such as after death of an uncle),
- difficulty with describing emotional states of other (for example characters in the novel) and creating stories containing descriptions of emotional states,
- problems with imaginative play and understanding of it,
- problems with recognising people and faces and memorising facts about people)

SELD is clearly a cognitive deficit, a "learning disability" in socio-emotional area. It is serious deficit of knowledge about social and emotional "realms".

I think that when symptoms such as lack of eye contact, lack of interest in making friends and attachment rather to objects than to people are seen in childhood they do not necessarily mean that this serious cognitive disability is present. They may be associated in other group of symptoms than described above.