Similarities between Aspergers and Dyspraxia

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So I?m 20 and have just been diagnosed with dyspraxia. Looking at a list of aspergers traits, there seems to be an overlap between the two, and I was just wondering if they blur in the middle somehow? I have traits which may typically be seen as aspergers-like, such as sensory problems, meltdowns, rigid habits, lack of eye contact, social problems and too much mimicking? but I do have an average number of friends, and I rarely talk about my interests to people anymore.

Is it just that people with aspergers sometimes have dyspraxia too? Or are they similar but to different extremities? I have become more confused whilst reading about women and aspergers, as there isn?t really much solid information on it, and saying that it presents differently in women is adding to my confusion. Any thoughts or insights would be appreciated!

I always thought dyspraxia was part of it.

As in dyspraxia is a part of aspergers? So is it only the severity of the social problems which differentiates the two?

I was also wondering if the line between the two may be more blurred with women, who are sometimes encouraged to put more effort into hiding the extent of their social difficulties, and this may not come up as clearly in testing??

What is dyspraxia?

Dyspraxia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developme ... n_disorder is "a chronic neurological disorder beginning in childhood that can affect planning of movements and co-ordination as a result of brain messages not being accurately transmitted to the body. It may be diagnosed in the absence of other motor or sensory impairments like cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson's disease."

Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe has dyspraxia and helps fund the University of Cambridge Autism Research Centre. His characteristics include not being able to tie shoelaces; thus, he is always seen wearing those Velcro-closure shoes.

I think its also called developmental coordination disorder, and affects motor coordination, self-care, writing, riding a bike etc and also planning, memory, perception and processing apparently.

A list of the dyspraxia symptoms, to me looks quite similar to a list of aspergers symptoms, but with less emphasis on the emotional/social side perhaps? Apparently I can't post a link because I'm new, sorry, but the dyspraxia foundation site has a good list of adult symptoms if you wanna check it out

I would like some thoughts on how it differs really, from more perspectives, as I don't know enough about aspergers to make a great comparison!

Thank you. Good website! But I have no idea what the difference really is!

Oh I didn't know about Daniel Radcliffe, interesting.

Ah no worries - thanks for checking it out! Its useful even to hear that other people find it unclear as well...

I'm pretty clumsy--but I'm not sure if I would be diagnosed with dyspraxia.

I believe a certain degree of dyspraxia--sometimes to the point of it being diagnosed--is very common with Aspergians.

Yes.

It must range in severity like everything else on the spectrum because I think I have above-average fine motor skills. It took me a tong time to tie my own shoes, but that was mainly due to confusion trying to follow directions from another person's perspective. My gross motor skills on the other hand... I can walk without tripping most of the time but my balancing is so bad and as a kid I learned to ride a bike or skip rope by myself.

My boyfriend has dyspraxia and I see no real difference between the two. Were both clumsy in one way (dropping plates, walking round corners etc) but have very good motor skills elsewhere (him guitar, me ballet/yoga). My personal belief is they are the same thing neurologically, just that it has been diagnosed based on mainly the motor abilities (because that's something they can see, and that's what they think matters).


My boyf has social issues but he doesn't have as much outward anxiousness and he has a group of friends that he grew up with (10 of them were the same school year from the same street-weird!) so that's probably why they didn't consider the social aspects too much- he appeared "normal"
and could mask his social difficulties.
With regards to the female/male aspergers thing, I think there is no real difference, except that ON AVERAGE girls are more predisposed to fitting in socially. Also, women are expected more of in this area so we see it as more important because if the reactions we got for being boisterous or whatever. That doesn't mean that a man with aspergers wouldn't have this ability to appear to fit in/mimic either- were all very different and have different natural inherited strengths and weaknesses.

I would suggest that dyspraxia is an easier thing for the outside world to "deal with" as they don't relate it as much to mental illness, and it would allow you exactly the same allowances/benefits etc so there's no need to worry if the actual diagnosis is different. I say think of yourself as having whichever you relate to most as they are currently only diagnosed by symptoms rather than what's really going on.