I honestly don't think there's much of a difference between NVLD and AS. They seem to be the same diagnosis seen from different angles.
My gap isn't that big--less than twenty points, verbal>performance. You have to look at individual subtests for a really big gap--80 points between a test that measured ability to find similarities between words, and a matrix-reasoning test that measured ability to find patterns in visual information.
What I found interesting about this particular gap is that both tests measured ability to find patterns--but when the information was given verbally, as words or concepts, it was a great deal easier than visual information in the form of colors and shapes; so much so that one sort of pattern-finding was my highest score and the other sort was my lowest.
I do not think, then, that it is pattern-finding that I am actually deficient or proficient in, but something about the processing of the information itself that makes it easier or harder to do. Things presented as images don't seem to be nearly as easy to process as things presented in the form of verbal logic.
I have heard that people with language delays often also have a performance>verbal gap, the opposite of what you usually find in autistic people without language delays, even long after they learn to speak.
I think, as a child, I must have had a much lower performance score... I remember being given an IQ test and having a lot more trouble with pictures and shapes than with words, rather than, as today, having only a little more trouble.
I've improved my visual-spatial skills over the years, I think....
Riding a bicycle
Playing computer games
Taking physics and engineering classes that had to do with the shapes of, and forces on, objects
Geometry
Puzzles
Learning to drive (still midway through)
Quilting, crochet, cross-stitch, and other crafts
Designing powerpoint presentations
Doing household chores
Working in jobs that involved manipulating objects in space
And, of course, natural (if delayed) neurological development.