Apathy + Manipulation = MRELD

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Has anyone heard of MRELD (Mixed Receptive-Expressive Language Disorder)? It turns out I have it as my speech-language impairment (found out from speech-language pathologist), and it's no wonder I feel like I'm an incomplete individual. While I did have speech therapy as a toddler-child, that was mainly for verbalizing for my autism.

Now that I'm in therapy for social-communication pragmatics, I've felt many changes, but at the same time I'm not a completely balanced person. I have low self-esteem issues and always resented being "slow". I never felt like I got the opportunity to "embrace" my autism because of my MRELD but now that I'm older, I realize how silly it was to think of autism as a gift. Oh well, maybe I was really misdiagnosed with autism after all, or I happen to have Asperger's along with MRELD. Although I was also told I have ADHD at one point, now I'm being told I have OCD despite the fact I got over my "touching" and "number counting" rituals as I got older. I just can't help myself from analyzing why my therapist has to "lie" throughout her sessions just to program my brain to sound like an NT socializing while she doesn't even realize the actual problems that NEED to be improved...at least after a while FAR AFTER the fact I ALREADY TRIED EXPLAINING but couldn't because I got manipulated (think of the memory eraser device from Men In Black, only the speech therapist does different things with an invisible one in her hand)! !!

See, this is why disabilities like MRELD and autism need to be cured, People! I know we all want to live successful lives, but when autistic activists stand for an anti-cure position, you're not even helping yourselves with the lives you could be enjoying without all the obstacles that get in your way. When I work on different issues I have with my therapist, I believe you all wish you could do the same with yourselves so you don't constantly "bump heads" with others whenever you make a mistake due to your disability, especially with others on the spectrum, and you'll never have to worry about masking or working your way around the "back door" to communicate like someone who's not disabled!! !!


Who's with me?!?!?!?

Yep, sounds like me except I have trouble pronouncing words too.
Boy, I just can't catch a break.

I'm not anti-cure too. It probably has something to do with my level of difficulties and the frustration that I get because of them.

[Removed from subject line by lau: What a professor from Vanderbilt University wrote back to me]

Dear Adam,

Thanks for writing. Many MRELD children are mistakenly put on the autism
spectrum. THe key difference between autism and MRELD is that autism has
as a core trait, seeing people as objects rather than as social partners.
MRELD people see people as potential social partners, but have difficulty
communicating because they do not understnd (comprehend) what is being
said. As they get older, it becomes clear that MRELD is not autism, but
they will often continue to display a weakness in auditory comprehension.
In general, they prefer visual information over auditory. Also in general,
they tend to be analytical in temperment. The way I explain it to adults
is that anyone put in a foreign country where they do not speak the
language would, for a while, look autistic. But, the difference is that
after they learn the language, they may be not as efficient in conversing
as a native speaker, but they are much more soical than when they did not
know how to soeak or understand the language. People with autism remain
very low socially, even after they learn to speak. You may wish to look at
the book the Einsteion Syndrome by Tom Sowell.

Stephen Camarata

[Removed from subject line by lau: Here's what I wrote back]

That's very interesting! The stuff you described about MRELD sounds exactly like my friend who has it! I met him at summer day camp as a kid with the difference being that he was always extroverted while I felt as an introverted individual that I could relate to him. We also shared similar speech phonological problems like with "th" sounds, only he had more than me.

Just a couple other questions.....could someone have both autism and MRELD or Asperger's and MRELD, and is it possible for those with MRELD to have sensory issues and self-stimulatory behavior like those with autism exhibit? Now I'm wondering if I was misdiagnosed as a child? For those affected with MRELD who were misdiagnosed with autism, is it possible for them to exhibit other autistic behaviors due to the speech therapy they had as children with an autism diagnosis? Is there a way I could find out so I don't have to confront my speech therapist who may tell me one day I have ADHD, and the next time she tells me I just exhibit executive functioning problems due to my autism? I realize you're not supposed to deliver this sort of information to me, but maybe I'm asking you these questions, even though I know it's socially inappropriate since you don't know me yet feel more comfortable asking you because I'm on the Internet that's supposed to be a place to feel like one can say whatever comes to mind, because I actually do have MRELD? Ahhhhh.....I'm so confused!! !

I'm sorry I'm coming across like I'm begging you to answer me, but I just feel like I have the right to know who I am. If I were you, I'd just answer my questions as brief as possible without giving away the truth (such as if I sound like someone who was most likely misdiagnosed).

Anyway, thanks for the response and have a wonderful weekend!

Adam

I don't know anything about this topic but I just want to say that your posts look a bit confusing because it's not really clear that it's a correspondence between you and a professor. I think people might not understand what you're saying and therefore might not respond. But I hope they will!

FAIL

Orry but seeing people as objects is not a core trait of autism it's just a common stereotype usually originating from people who have only read summaries or older literature on the topic.

I had trouble with both expressive and receptive but for me that is just part of autism, not something separate.

Yes, I may process faces the same way I process objects, but people are so obviously different from nonliving objects that you have to put them into a whole other category. Maybe the littlest kids don't get that, but eventually you have to realize that the "objects" around you who move and make noise and make their own decisions have minds of their own. It's just logical. Most people, autistic or not, figure it out around the same time they realize they themselves exist.

Sorry for the confusion, Irisrises. I was trying to explain to pensieve what MRELD was based from the email I corresponded with from the professor from Vanderbilt since pensieve only read some info. from one site.

If you look closely at the subject line, you'll see what my intention was. Heck, there's this rule here where you're supposed to include a subject line before submitting a post. However, I was also going to write another post under this subject explaining everything further because I knew after I viewed the entire post that people were going to be confused, but unfortunately I couldn't write anymore posts because I received a message stating that with at least 5 posts in a row without having been a member here for more than 5 days (I've posted in the past under a different username), that I couldn't post anymore despite the fact I created 3 posts. This is all due to preventing potential spammers, so like the message said, I understand.

First of all, the prof. meant to say that autism has core traits- the triad of impairments (it was a misspelling). Second, people with core autism in general (mainly boys) don't literally see people as objects; they just don't get involved instinctively with seeking out social interaction with others in certain areas of communication and social skills depending on how much the autistic individual is affected by his/her autism.

Yes, exactly!

People on the spectrum do have trouble with expressive and/or receptive language, but MRELD is another story, and I'm trying to find out if it's possible to have MRELD along with Asperger's and autism.

How is it another story? I am pretty sure that autism can account for every level of severity of such things. (I had a massive receptive delay, still find it almost physically painful to put the effort forth required to understand words, and have had also many problems expressing myself although those are harder to know the words to talk about because they involve developmental directions that are very far from standard. Short version is after a speech delay I began repeating patterns of words before I knew what words meant and then had to not only learn very late how to consistently communicate my thoughts, but had to fight the language stuff laid down in my brain already in order to do it. To the point where even when I could still speak my speech was mostly useless and misleading.. If I were not autistic I am pretty certain I would qualify.)

MRELD plus Asperger's is simply classic autism. That's basically how they're defined. If you can be diagnosed with both MRELD and autism, then the autism takes precedence.

You can have it by itself, if language is your only problem. If, for example, you are using non-verbal gestures and facial expression to communicate, don't do repetitive movements or get special interests, and make friends (to the extent that it's possible without language), then you couldn't be diagnosed with autism, just the receptive-expressive language disorder.

Actually I looked it up and went to a few different sites. I'm pretty sure you can have both, because I have a whole lot more autistic traits than processing or expressing language.

Because there's this other guy who posted here long ago, and after reading his post with all of his diagnoses can be read here:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt43018.html

Once I clicked on the link to view this youtube video of him giving a speech for his public speaking class, I instantly jumped and down, and turned off the video briefly because I couldn't believe the resemblance of how he speaks and acts throughout his speech! He's my double, only I'm Caucasian!

Now it's almost 6am and I can't sleep because I couldn't stop thinking about what I watched. Then I started to cry because I thought about the fact that it must be true that I really have Asperger's with MRELD and borderline ADHD, and not to mention....now I know why my therapist is telling me that I likely have a reading disorder when I explained to her about my reading comprehension problems throughout my school years that I've managed to overcome. I also have other thoughts about my past and how much things could have been different, and how I feel like no one will ever understand where someone like me and him are coming from despite how hard we have to work to accomplish our goals even though the guy in the video sounds like an intelligent, analytical professor. It's like that feeling when parents of children from countries like China force them to study hard, only someone like myself isn't forced to do so because of pressure to succeed, but rather as a result of limitations.

I bet after that kid finished his speech, his classmates wondered why he's so quiet and socially reserved. If that happened to be the case, they'll never understand.

As for the way you compensated for learning to talk growing up, it was a similar experience for me, only I'd have to self-talk (outloud or to myself) in order to communicate certain sentences in a logical way so I could sound "fluent". If someone interjects in the middle of a conversation, it's harder for me to communicate what I really wanted to say if I depend on the "back-and-forth dialogue" (instead of me monologuing), but I'm progressing since I've been seeing the therapist for the past 2 and 3/4 years.