Autism and Learning disabilities

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http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/lear ... lities.htm

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Paying Attention - Memory - Math

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/

I have also gotten the same thing. People find it hard to believe how I had difficulty in school and was in special ed since I seem so smart.

Lot of people seem to think having a learning disability means low intelligence. In the UK it does mean that but in the USA it doesn't.

Since AS and Nonverbal Learning Disability are very similar, if not identical, disorders...I think it is fair to define AS as a learning disability. The thing is....we would need to expand our definition of learning disabilities in order classify many people with AS as learning disabled.

For example, many with AS don't have any problems in traditional academic areas. These same people might have great difficulty reading non-verbal social cues, perceiving sarcasm, expressing themselves non-verbally, etc.....All of these things ARE, ultimately, learned behaviors and in that sense, people who have significant difficulties with them are learning disabled.

Oh, yes, more often than not in my experience! I think it has to do with the general tendency of the autistic mind to specialize in one thing but not the other--so you can be at the 98th percentile in your best strength, the 2nd percentile in your worst weakness (or even more dramatic, in the case of actual savant syndrome). That's what you call a learning disability--when you have one thing that you're just lousy at learning, compared to the other stuff you can do; and it happens so often with autistics that I'm surprised when I hear someone with autism say, "Actually, I learn everything about equally well."

As for me, I have gross-motor dyspraxia and used to be hyperlexic as a child. I'm no longer hyperlexic because my comprehension has caught up with my reading ability. At the beginning, I was reading sixth-grade level stuff at the age of four, but not understanding a bit of it--now I can read and understand anything written in a language I speak. I grew out of it by the age of twelve or thereabouts--it's possible, developmentally, to compensate, which I think I did because I just loved learning, and when I realized that words weren't just interesting toys to play with but could actually satisfy your curiosity about things, I pretty much took off.

The dyspraxia... not so much. I didn't learn to drive until the age of twenty-five, and only recently have learned to run relatively gracefully. I highly recommend that anyone with gross-motor dyspraxia should walk a lot: It helps you learn about balance and coordination, however bouncy and awkward you are at first.

I was in special ed for learning problems.