NLD Information and Support Thread

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I read some of Rourke's website today and became very depressed.

If someone can recommend or post a link to one of the NLD online support groups, I'll strongly appreciate it.

There is an online dyspraxia group that is probably quite similar.

Most local asperger and HFA groups have incorporated NLD and semantic pragmatic disorder into their accepted individuals, since the social deficits are common. NLD is very similar to AS, at least in the effect on individuals social lives.

that's too bad.
this one is more for parents, but adults are accepted

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NLD-In-Common/

for adults:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nldadult/

http://www.thelighthouseproject.com/NLD_vs_AS.html

I have NLD and I remember things so much easier when it comes to visual memory rather than hearing it. Here's a good example:

I can listen to a song 300 times and not even learn all the words (not kidding). Yet, I can read the lyrics to the song just three times and memorize it with no problems at all. I don't know if I'm an exception or not, but that is just me.

I have AS and am like this. I have often wondered if perhaps I'm not just NLD but misdiagnosed, but the more I read about the two I would have to say that this is not the case. I am definitely AS. But yes, I listen to songs all the time and never know all, or even very many of the words. But once I see it written, I am like ... wow, I never really paid attention to the words before! I have found that some of my favorite songs I no longer liked after I learned the words just because it ruined it. Some songs sound so beautiful and yet are not when you actually see the words written out before you.

I have a very similar anxiety about the NLD criteria. The things about which I am most glaringly "textbook" are the literalness, and a tendency toward being absolutely clueless in new situations without extensive verbal feedback and explanation.

BUT, I absolutely LOVE math, both its abstract purity, as well as its precision. It is reliable, it is logical - and it is a language you only really ever have to learn once. For most (if not all) of us, that language is base-10. Everything else is an extension of it - even the nonlinear maths like geometry and calculus.

Anyway, there is tons I can add to this, but the price OTHERS often pay for my (if I do say so myself) exceptionally high verbal proficiency, is a tendency to be - well, errr, *verbose*!

Take care.

-stan shura

Getting my diagnosis was kind of the end of the road for me. I finally found a psychologist that I got along with and seemed interested in helping me (this is difficult for me). He convinced my primary care physician to refer me to a neurologist. I had several tests done with him where he found a pineal cyst and temporal lobe epilepsy. I take medication for the temporal lobe epilepsy which supposedly helps with absence seizures but the problem with absence seizures is that I usually don't notice if I've had one so it's hard to tell how effective the medication actually is. I do remember being a bit more self aware when I started taking it but I don't know if that's lessened or I got used to being more self aware.

Thankfully, my psychologist didn't think that that was everything and he referred me to a neuropsychiatrist for neuropsych testing. The first psychiatrist wanted to put me on stimulant medication when he first met me but then at our second meeting decided that there was nothing wrong with me. I was appalled at his behavior (didn't have my charts, hadn't done his homework, changed his mind so completely with no reason, etc.) and I refused to see him again. My psychologist found someone else to do the testing and she diagnosed me with Nonverbal Learning Disability (127/100 split) with ADHD traits, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

My psychologist and I both agree that I don't really have OCD - it's just that my coping skills look like OCD. Since it doesn't impact my life negatively and not having those coping skills is problematic, we chose not to do anything about it. I was referred to a psychiatrist for the other stuff. At first, the psychiatrist wanted to deal with the anxiety first and he kept putting me on SSRI's even after I told him that I don't react well to SSRI's and don't want to take them. I tried 2 before he agreed to move off of the anxiety and onto the ADHD. He refused to give me a PRN for anxiety. I tried Adderall for ADHD and it worked very well but it made my blood pressure too high so I can't take it. I tried Strattera after that but it didn't work as well as Adderall and that's when that doctor started not calling in my prescriptions and I'd have to call his office every day and leave a message that my medication still hadn't been called into the pharmacy. A week into this, he called me to yell at me about calling him and leaving messages every day (one message each day and I would have stopped if he'd called in the prescription that he told me he was calling in when I left his office so should have been ready that afternoon). I refused to see him after he yelled at me and I stopped taking Strattera.

My psychologist knows that I have trouble with psychiatrists (as noted above) but he said that there really wasn't any place to send me. I met with him a few times but there wasn't much to do - he had done some research but he didn't know that much about NLD.

So, really, my diagnosis was also the end of my treatment.

I hope it's ok for me to be here. I was referred to this board by a member of an NLD mailing list but when I registered, there was no option for not having an autistic spectrum disorder. I clicked the other spectrum disorder option but there's still controversy over whether NLD is in fact on the autistic spectrum or not so I didn't know if it was ok for me to be here.

Your description of NLD is the best one I've ever seen. I actually copied it and pasted it to my livejournal yesterday before I became a member of this forum. I put that I didn't write it but I didn't know the name of the author. If you'd like me to credit you somehow, just let me know how. Thanks for writing it.

An Asperger's diagnosis trumps an NLD diagnosis so if you have both, you'll usually only get diagnosed with Asperger's because they're so similar. If someone is diagnosed with NLD, it usually means that they don't fit the criteria for Asperger's but they do fit the criteria for NLD.

Actually this is not necessarily true. It is not uncommon for LD-NOS (nld) to be in the diagnosis if both are present. A PDD diagnosis does not necassarily preclude NLD, in fact it could be comorribund diagnosis. It all depends on whether the diagnostician is apt to say NLD is an atypical version of AS (thus getting a PDD-NOS diagnosis) or a learning disorder. If they come from the learning disorder school of thought, its co-morribund, if they come from NLD being atypical AS, AS diagnosis trumps it. It is VERY inconsistant right now. Both AS and NLD though are caused by the same thing, atypical right hemesphere development.

welcome. I am the member that referred you. or at elast i'm guessing.

I just want to note that my name somehow got stuck in the quote, it was LostInSpace who started the sticky and wrote the NLD description. Just to relay any confusion. It is very hard with quotes sometimes... the names can get mixed up.

Outstanding definition of NLD and how it compares to AS and other autism spectrum disorders. At nearly 50 years of age I'm finally starting to make some sense of my growing up years and how I've been impacted by having NLD and ADD. Back when I was a kid there was very little in this realm that was a helpful diagnosis. About as far as they went was 'brain damage'.

I'm curious if its possible to have Asperger's as a child and learn enough social skills and coping mechanisms to simply be 'downgraded' to NVD? I recall that much of my personality as a child was leaning to the autistic side. Today, I don't see myself as having clear autistic patterns due to many years of learning both physical motor skills as well as social skills. Same with my ADD. Using a palm pilot with alarms I am now almost never late to anything and rarely find myself acting very impulsive, bored, or distracted. As a child and teen I was all of the above in a big way. I am aware that I have to be vigilant in staying both physically and mentally active or I seem to back slide into ADD traits.

NLD seems to manifest itself in emotional exhaustion if in a social situation for more than an hour. Also not seeing 'red flags' with some people socially and how they cannot be trusted as well as in my construction business in how some people take advantage of my good will. The anxiety and depression still is something I deal with as a consequence of living with NLD symptoms my whole life and not knowing how to manage or accept it. Seems to be an inherited condition as my Grandfather showed symptoms and my nephew was dx with NLD. I'm so pleased that he has gone to a school designed for kids with this challenge.

Seems like the more info about these conditions the more freedom individuals have in not having that condition be a hindrance in becoming all they can be.

Thanks to all who contribute in providing much of this information.
Cheers,
Phil

I really like this term. Verbalizing the nonverbal. Cool.