Gus Walz stole the show Wednesday when his father, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, officially accepted the vice presidential nomination on the third night of the Democratic National Convention . The 17-year-old stood up during his father’s speech and said, “That’s my dad,” later adding, “I love you, Dad.
” The governor and his wife, Gwen Walz, revealed in a People interview that their son was diagnosed with nonverbal learning disability as a teenager. A 2020 study estimated that as many as 2.9 million children and adolescents in North America have nonverbal learning disability, or NVLD, which affects a person’s spatial-visual skills.
The number of people who receive a diagnosis is likely much smaller than those living with the disability, said Santhosh Girirajan, the T. Ming Chu professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and professor of genomics at Penn State. “These individuals are very intelligent and articulate well verbally, but they are typically clumsy with motor and spatial coordination,” he told NBC News.
“It’s called a learning disorder because there are a lot of cues other than verbal cues that are necessary for us to keep information in our memory.” People with NVLD often struggle with visual-spatial skills, such as reading a map, following directions, identifying mathematical patterns, remembering how to navigate spaces or fitting blocks together. Social situations can also be difficult.
“Body language and some of the things we think about .