ASD-like (but not ASD) disorders and disability benefits
Do people with NVLD (nonverbal learning disabilities) or SCD (social communication disorders) have smaller chances for having social security disability allowances or other disability benefits than individuals with ASD (autism spectrum disorders), especially milder or high-functioning ASDs?
I think that people with NVLD, SCT or similar "ASD-like diagnoses" should have LARGER disability benefits. They can't be cheap workforce, "slaves for the capitalism". For me many description of NVLD looks really bad, serious. So people with NVLD should have easier way to get help from disability benefits.
And I suppose that some people from milder part of autistic spectrum should have smaller benefits in comparison to some people with NVLDs or SCD. Having NVLD without ASD should NOT automatically mean that you have smaller chances for disability benefits than someone with mild ASD! It is case-by-case and not every ASD (especially subclinical or also level 1 ASD) has to be worse disability in general than cases of other "social developmental disorders".
In am from Poland and I have diagnoses of Asperger's syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizotypal disorder and I have ralatively large benfits - I have social pension (about 640 PLN per month, it would be more than 150 $ per month) and moderate level of disability. I suppose that in USA I could have "less serious" diagnoses and less benefits because of disability.
Milder ASDs for me are those without intellectual disability and with relatively normal speech. Having talents like precocious visualisation abilities, being good in programming or having other theoretically "practical" interests like being good in DYI, physics also make some cases of ASD milder.
Severe ASD is rather with (especially more serious) intellectual disability and lack of proper speech. Severe ASD makes people incapable of independent existence.
People with many forms of so-called NVLD and SCD (social communication disorder) struggle with interpersonal skills and people with ASD also have deficits in social skills.
SCD and NVLD are rather not as disabling as ASD level 3, but I think that severe cases of them can be disabiling like ASD level 2 and, due to it, can be more disabling than ASD level 1.
Clearly, I did not have precocious anything. My autism can be called MFA-HFA.
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Slytherin/Thunderbird
Last edited by Lumi on 11 Sep 2016, 12:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I don't know about benefits for NVLD and SCD but I think they are less than those for mild ASD - everytgingdepends on your functioning level, not kind od disablity. Well, someone with NVLD or SCD would probably have 02-P(mental problems) instead of 12C (pervasive developmental disorders) but it doesn't matter - both are considered "special disabilities", with higher benefits than most others.
BTW. How do you get a social pension in Poland? I have Asperger and level 1 disability (12C, 02P) and I wonder if I could get a pension due to struggling getting a job(I am almost 28 year old and I never worked, expect for trainee jobs). I would really use the 640PLN per month. I might even be able to rent a room and survive with this which would help me getting independent and finding a job(because I would move to different city and hunt for jobs there).
I have only 02-P despite the fact that one of my diagnoses was F84.5 (Asperger's syndrome). I have also nasty OCD and diagnosis of schizotypal disorder (it is among mental illnesses like persistent delusional disorder or schizophrenia in ICD-10 and not among personality disorders (I think that it is correct)).
I got social pension after first visit on commission in Social Insurance Institution. About two months before the commission I had "strange" incident - ambulance took me from a crowded place in Poland because someone looked something concerning in me, as I think. I was taken to a psychiatrist and got a card from her. This card was on my documentation given to the institution. Before the commission, a psychologist with whom I had some relatively long dialogues, said that "pension is due to me like kennel to a dog" (Polish: "renta należy mi się jak psu buda") or something similar.
PS. I think that SCD and "social" NVLD should be also labeled as pervasive developmental disorders (or something like that - in one "subcategory of (developmental) disorders with ASDs), not just as mental problems or especially "learning or communication disorders". They have too "general" impact on overall person's functioning in my opinion.
I think that the name "NVLD" gives disservice (in Polish there is term niedźwiedzia przysługa ("bear's service" or "ursine service" to describe such a disservice)) for many individuals with such a problem. Naming their condition as a "learning disability" in my opinion can rather harm than help these individuals. I would re-diagnose many people with NVLD and I would but them in the category of "pervasive developmental disorders" instead of "learning disorders". For me "social NVLD" looks as another sort of autism in some way, not as a sort of learning issue. I think than in DSM "social NVLD", "social communication disorder" and ASD should be under one position named for example "pervasive developmental disorder" (level 0, level 1, level 2, level 3). Many cases of "NVLD" are too complex to classify them just as a learning disorders. So-called NVLD can affect not only cognition, but also motoric, sensory area and executive functioning and - what is the most important - social and emotional area. So it is like autism...
