Motor skills - Gross vs. fine.

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Is it unusual for someone with AS to have good or excellent fine motor skills, but poor gross motor skills?

I'm sure I never had problems with small muscle movements. My writing is alright, I played piano, paint in small detail and am pretty good at threading a needle. I am however generally awkward - Started walking later than average, had a strange gait, terrible coordination (especially in sports) and have a bump on my head from falling into a wall today. Yes, it did hurt.

Is this sort of motor skill duality common?

My handwriting is atrocious and I have an unusual way of holding a pen. Whenever I took an "art" class at school I fell behind really quickly, usually being much slower than the other students and still sloppy despite my trying to be so careful. I never did well in technical drawing or construction either. I haven't ever managed to "properly" tie a tie to date, and couldn't tie my shoes until I was thirteen. I was never very good at sports or swimming because my movements were awkward and inefficient. I apparently have a unique "walk" and my manner of running is very humourous.

I'd say I'm poor, even quite deficient, in both fine and gross motor skills.

Like you I typicaly have good fine motor skills, but my gross motor skills aren't that good. I'm not that bad, I loose my ballance often, but I'm almost always able to catch myself, not always in the most non-chalant manner. I've also been told that I have a strange walk, although I had no idea, until one of my co-workers said that she could tell I was comming by the sound of my walk, that it was "unique" as she put it.

As far as the fine motor skills go, like I said they're typicaly good, but I'd still say they're nothing to be proud of. My handwriting is a little messy, but I've seen NTs with worse handwriting.

My fine motor skills are far from fine, and my gross motor skills are, well, gross.

I work with my hands at work a lot, typing, fixing printers, and stuff, but try getting a hand truck through a self-closing door...grrr...

What's the difference between them again and what do they consist of? I forgot. -Power Girl

Naturally I am lacking in both. Through training, I have overcome the limitations in my gross motor functions. I still have significant failings in my fine motor skills, but I have not made as large of an effort to improve them.

Did not vote.

Poor fine and gross, to the point where I could get dyspraxia as a diagnosis too if need be- but I'm relying that people will understand that ASDs can come with poor motorskills, and if they don't, I can explain why quite logically. I'd need to pay for a dyspraxia assessment. xD

Be better off spending my money elsewhere.

Funnily enough I first heard of 'motor skills' in my cousin's book on dyspraxia, and as a kid decided that I most likely had semantic pragmatic disorder... very interesting considering where I am now. It's amazing how I remember hearing a lot of these terms first and somehow they all seemed to slowly fit together. 0_0

I am poor with both fine and gross.

My writing is so bad a use a laptop in classes and my sport skills are so bad that I can't even throw a ball in the right direction... Hell, I can't even walk properly!

Fine motor: wildly unreliable, unless I have a musical instrument in my hands, in which case they're brilliant.

Gross motor: sucks.

Fine motor skills: Absaloutly s**t. Cant hold a pen right, slip on shoes, do shoe laces properly, do a bed properly, hold a knife and fork properly, or even repair my bike (its lame because it is my core interest so thats why i should be able to).

Gross motor skills: Unpredictable. I think with age i got better at sports requiring whole body movements and so forth, BUT i've always played better in non-team sports.

I'm exceptionally good with both fine and gross motor skills. When there is a set of neuromuscular behaviors I never use though, I am poor.

I'm good because I've always had an athletic life. Like many Asperger females, I was a tomboy. My father was an athlete in college so I got taught how to play basketball, do outdoors things, etc. In my late teens I somehow picked up doing yoga and other mind-body training. I didn't have a real objective, just found that I could get some peace and centering in an often disoriented body. Then, I joined the military where the structure, rules and physically-oriented work was manageable for me. Being in the military meant I got even more physical training. In my adult life, I've simply kept up running, doing art (requires fine motor skills), and I'm a physical adept. My husband taught me how to be a decent fly fisherman in just a few years of weekends, which is almost unheard-of. Since many NTs never do any physical training and sports, I'm way above average in the motor skills department. I have the opinion that any Asperger can train their sensorimotor system, just like anyone who goes into team sports or other physical training during their life, can develop better "reflexes" than someone who does not.

One interesting thing tho: when I went back to school recently, I was unable to write. With computers and printers at home, work and anywhere else, it had been decades since I had done much writing, and that had become "deprogrammed" from my sensorimotor system. I still knew how to write, in my procedural memory, but I couldn't get my handwriting fast enough or coherent enough to even turn in homework on time. It was a big surprise to have this handicap. It was a big problem for me. So I think that the handwriting involved specialized fine motor skills that my sports, computer, cooking and other activities couldn't keep me "trained" in.

I still have trouble writing as a physical matter and get lost on the page.