NLD Information and Support Thread

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I have NLD and I'm confused on the difference between AS and NLD.

NLD is ASD without all the weirdness and creepiness. Unfortunately, there are some of us who are unfortunate to have both.

My understanding is that there are several similarities between AS and NLD. Some differences that I have learned about from reading online include that a person with NLD usually has good eye contact and a person with AS does not usually have good eye contact. Also a person with NLD does not usually stim and a person with AS does stim. Someone with NLD may have more facial expressions that someone with AS, but the person with NLD will not always use appropriate facial expressions. This is what I have learned from reading information online and I would recommend reading credible sources online and this would include reasearching at PubMed for scientific related articles or using other credible research links to include Google Scholar.

NLD and AS are two totally different things, caused by different things and affecting different functions. Some of the traits are opposite. All they share is the lack of empathy that causes the oblivion when relating to other people and consequent social failure. Because there's nothing out there for NLD adults, and no forums, we NLDers tend to hang with the autistics.

If you read and compare the lists of traits you can easily see this.

NLD is a harmed NT brain. Autism is a different brain.

No, that is not how the scientific community views it. AS refers to social and behavioral deficits. NLD refers to specific cognitive deficits. The later may or may not cause, contribute to, or merely coexist with the former. I think an interesting question is if someone with AS and nvld got rid of the latter, would she still have the former? In some cases at least the answer may be no.

Thank you for the explanation MoonDust and yet I am still confused as to how a person can have ASD and NLD, if one is a damaged brain and one is a brain that is wired different. It is very interesting to learn about the differences between the two diagnoses. Have you read research on PET scans and hyometabolism in different parts of the brain in ASD persons and NLD?

Well, you could have a damaged autistic brain instead of an autistic brain or a damaged NT brain.

What traits of each list apply to you? For sure you don't both have the "Engineer type" (AS) and the seriously impaired visio-spatial abilities (NLD), as these are opposite traits.

I have read that sometimes apsies have excellent visual spatial skills and then some aspies fit the criteria of NLD with limited visual spatial skills, poor sense of direction, etc. For me when I read about asperger's I thought this sounds like me and then I had neuropyschological testing and then read more about NLD. It seems like I fit the NLD very well and I have good eye contact and not sure if I stim or not. Even though I have good eye contact sometimes I am not comofortable with eye contact.

I have the impaired visual-spatial skills as my verbal IQ is significantly higher than my performance IQ. My skills throughout my life reflect the symptoms of NLD. For example, limited sense of direction, poor ability to reverse and parallel park a car, poor motor skills to include I am not good at origami at all. Also I have excellent rote memory and love reading and doing crosswords. In addition, I like learning foreign languages. In middle school I was assigned a math tutor and did fine when it was explained in more detail. I like directions in a linear pattern to include driving directions in a linear and step by step list. Map quest which has a step by step process is great for me. I could go and I will stop now.

Gazelle, it's as if I'd written your post, word by word! But I'm curious, why do you think you have Autism too? I'd think you and I are the "by-the-book" NLD!

Yes I agree that I do feel that I am text book NLD.

But you are diagnosed with Autism?

No I am not diagnosed with autism, yet I would not rule it out entirely. I do fit the NLD diagnosis very well so I think of my self as NLD with the possibility of also having asperger's.

Me too, the same thing. I'm curious...what traits make you think you may have AS too? I'm still analyzing that in myself, so this is very interesting to me.

Yes I originally thought I had AS so I still have a feeling that I may have it, but not sure. I want to someday get an official assessment by a Psychologist or Psychiatrist who will say yes you have NVLD or yes you have AS and NVLD or no you have neither and have visual spatial deficits. I am very sure that I have NVLD and it would be hard to imagine that I do not have it.

I got an AS diagnosis, but I don't think the AS psychiatrist that diagnosed me even thought of the possibility of NVLD. I didn't mentione it either, because I went for a diagnosis only to get help from the gov't when I was constantly being fired, and because NVLD is not in the DSM, adults needing financial help from the gov't are diagnosed as AS even if what they really have is NVLD. It's a way of going by the DSM book without harming the NVLD adults because of going by the DSM.

It's interesting to read about everyone's experience with NLD because it differs from person to person.

I'm horrible at math. I do not like word problems because they're too difficult for me to comprehend and I do not care for the problems where they have geometrical figures in them and they ask you to pull the algebraic equation from it and solve it.

I avoid chemistry as well. Balancing the chemical equations are horrible.

P.E. for me is so-so. I don't mind the activities where no sports is involved. My perception of hitting a ball was always off.

Art is okay. I gave up on drawing when I realized I wasn't that good at it. The only art class I did enjoy was ceramics. The teacher didn't really care what your project looked like as long as it was presentable.

My favorite subjects so far are writing, English, foreign language, history, and any sociology class. I'm pretty good at writing but starting any writing project is hard for me as I don't know where to begin. English is a given and I come by learning foreign language easily. Enunciation is a whole different story. History is always fascinating to learn about and sociology classes like psychology and criminology are also fascinating as well.

Mind you, my experiences come from elementary, middle, and high school and I'm in college right now.