What would you rather have?

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I prefer Asperger Syndrome than Dyslexia,although I had to use the dictionary yesterday to spell efficiency so I may be showing mild symptoms of Dyslexia . I rather have limited motivation in social activity than have gramattical deficiency or dyscalculia.

Dyslexia runs in my family, and really, it depends on the severity of each. All things being equal though, I'd rather have AS. Dyslexia would be a bigger pain to me.

I also fail to understand why everyone else is calling dyslexia an insta-kill for any attempt at reading or grammar/spelling. My mother has it fairly badly, and she reads and writes just fine. It took her ages to learn it, but she just reads by word sight memory, and she can recognize if a word she's written is spelled wrong by looking at it. What she'd basically do is type the word without looking or thinking about it, then look up at the screen and see if it looks wrong, then repeat if it is. That would only happen with words she rarely uses though. And usually she doesn't have to, since there's spellcheck and all. Also, her reading speed is very high. She can read a thick novel in one or two days easily.

Learning to read that way is hard though, and if you're not a good visual thinker, I guess I can see how it could put a major cap on some abilities....

I have some reading problems that I find more frustrating than the aspie traits. I don't know. Sometimes aspie-ness can be endearing, but my reading problems have just gotten in my way and made me slow at times. It can take me forever to finish a book which can be tiresome. No matter though, I love to read anyway. I wouldn't trade my abilities with my special interests for anything, though.

That's like asking me if I want the pointy stick in my right eye or my left one. I'll just leave it where it is.

DandelionFireworks wrote

I'll say they're small achievements indeed especially in light of all
the other things I can't seem to achieve no matter how hard I try.

It's almost like everything you've mentioned here is the only
island of ability floating around in a brain of profound cognitive
disabilities. And there's not much I can do with this island except
peck out a few fairly coherant posts on wrongplanet. I am literate,
nobody is taking dictation for me and I need no dictation programs.
I really don't even know what dictation program entails in fact. I'm
using my own computer which I purchased out of the meager savings
I had from my last illustrious position as a lowly salesperson in a family
friend's retail clothing business. I'm 40 years old and I haven't managed
to aquire ONE vocational skill in all those years. I've spent much of my
adult life unemployed and fully financially dependent on family (my
current situation.) The jobs i've actually had were all menial, unskilled
positions. I never made enough $ at any of these positions to be fully
independent of my family. I even was fired from many of these positions
for one reason or another directly related to my neuropsychological
problems. If it wasn't executive functioning issues, it was a motor skills
issue. If it wasn't one of those, it was because of my deficits at math. If it
wasn't that....it was because of my abysmal visual-spatial/mechanical
skills or my socio-emotional problems.


All of this in spite of fact that I scored 143 on my last IQ test and in the high-average to superior range on all but one (I scored low-average/94 on one) of
other five tests i've had. All these tests were professionally-administered
too. There is nothing, I repeat, NOTHING on any of my IQ/neuropsych
tests (though my scores on the one were rather low...they were still in the
average range except for PIQ which was borderline/82) which would suggest
i'm any less capable of learning and remembering things than most other people
with NVLD/AS who have been infinitely more successful than me in both
academic and non-academic areas.


So in spite of my IQ/neuropsych tests...I truly don't feel I have a greater
capacity to learn (not to mention retain/recall) most things than a person
with mild mental retardation. In fact.....there ARE people with mild mental
retardation who have WAY more skills and talents than I do.

Case in point....this guy.

http://www.sujeet.com/



He play SIX musical instruments proficiently...i've been playing guitar on and
off for 25 years and STILL can't play better than most people who've been
playing for a few months or something. He has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do
and I don't even have a black belt in boiling eggs. Now granted, he's probably
pretty *high-functioning* (even in terms of IQ) for a person with Down
syndrome, but i'm pretty sure his IQ is not beyond the borderline range
at best. He makes it very clear that he has trouble learning things so I doubt
he's one of those very rare people with Down syndrome who actually have
average (or better....i've heard of one person with DS who scored 120 on
professionally-administered IQ test) or better IQ scores.


I don't know if i'll ever figure out why i'm seemingly so incapable of
learning things that even people with IQ scores far below mine are
able to learn. None of it makes any sense to me. I don't know if i've
somehow deluded myself into thinking i'm far less capable than I
really am or what. Perhaps I suffer from some bizarre and idiosyncratic
somatoform disorder with some occult origins buried deep within my
subconscious or something. I really have no good explanations at all
in terms of why i'm so *low-functioning* when it comes to academics,
vocational skills, talents, (<which are nonexistent in my case), etc......

I've asked many of psychologists who've tested me and they claimed that
i'm NOT nearly as *low-functioning* as my lifelong self-observations have
suggested I am. For example, because I DO have some deficits at math
according to my IQ/neuropsych tests (but the results of these tests would
suggest that my math deficts are not nearly as severe as I believe them to
be) I asked two of the psychs who tested me if i'd ever be able to handle
calculus. They told me I probably would....but that it would likely be a
struggle for me. Well, so what? Calculus is often a struggle even for
people without any learning disabilities at all. But this has not been
my experience. I couldn't even pass introductory algebra when I took
it for the first time in college. I took the course twice, dropped before I
flunked and then opted for course substitutions for my math requirements.
I was eligible for the substitions because I was registered with disabled student
services and I DO have a documented learning disability which "manifests itself
as difficulty with higher math concepts".

So I only have an worthless AA degree in the equally worthless liberal arts
which I was only able to obtain with no math courses at all.

All that's ever been indicated by all my neuropsych/IQ is that I exhibit
the general characteristics of individuals with non-verbal learning disability.
My official Axis I Dx-es have either been LD-NOS or Mathematics Disorder.
I have never even been officially Dx-ed with AS or any other ASD/PDD. I didn't
even recieve an LD Dx at all on my most recent IQ test because I guess the
psychologist wrongly assumed an LD Dx wasn't warranted because all of my
IQ scores were so high. I scored 155 on VIQ and 111 on PIQ giving me an FSIQ
score of 143. So there was a 44-point discrepancy between my VIQ and PIQ
and somehow this psychologist didn't think that was significant even when
he admitted I display "very limited functioning in non-verbal tasks, social
skills, organization, planning and general executive functioning".


In any case....if ALL of my cognitive problems are directly related to the NVLD
syndrome, then don't ever let anyone tell you NVLD can't be as debilitating
as defacto mental retardation.

There does appear to be a few NLD-ers whose IQ scores are not within
the borderline-MR range (with the exception of PIQ and many grad students
with NVLD/AS score within the borderline/MR range on PIQ. Even several
people right here on WP) who function as poorly as I do or damn close to it.

Case in point...."Samuel B"

http://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/oah/dds ... 8.0084.pdf

I prefer AS.

Aspergers. I don't know much about dyslexia, but I'm glad to be without the reading difficulties that can come with it.

Neither one, the two of them suck.

Too general. It depends on the symptoms. My husband's dyslexia doesn't keep him from reading, he does these other things with language, though that are kind of neat. He did have to have extra help learning to read as a kid but he has developed a love of reading like I have. If it were dyslexia that kept me from reading I just can't imagine it as I'm such a book junkie. AS, same thing. There are some folks who's AS symptoms would be sheer torture for me, but others who have symptoms that would probably work real well with my personality and needs.

I'm OK with how I am. ADHD, AS charactaristics, and just my own wacky quirky set if attributes that make me me.

I'd have to go with the demon I know. I like to read so I'd have to say no to dyslexia, I know already how to hide m AS if I had too.

I agree. My husband had trouble learning to read in the first place, but now reads very well. He does some odd word substitution things. He'll think he's saying one word and he's saying something else. Usually we can tell what he means by context. He does it more when writing. He's managed a twenty seven year military career and assorted college degrees. I do proof some of his stuff to put the words right, but the ideas are his. He managed without me for most of his career. He's got ADHD as well.

Horus,

I'm so sorry you're struggling to find your answers. I didn't get an accurate diagnosis until I was in my forties, and while my struggles have been different than yours, they've been painful for me too. I've been able to hold jobs but there have been monumental struggles and I've failed at many of the things I've wanted the most despite obvious gifts and abilities that should have made things go differently. I can't compare my life to yours, but it's been hard in it's own way and I understand a little of what your saying through those experiences.

You've got some good writing skills, and you are able to express some very interesting ideas quite well. In college I avoided maths because it's an area of weakness for me. I studied what I could do well and managed a degree. Focusing on what I can do more than what I can't has helped. I think if I'd been diagnosed earlier and found the right treatment things would have been much different for me. I'd have had far more academic and employment opportunities and would probably have a lot more letters after my name at this point. Still, as I draw closer to fifty I have a life I love. At forty it wasn't such a rosy picture for me, but today it is good.

I'm pulling for you!

Horus, although I'm not professionally trained, it sounds to a layman with Aspie-special-interest-level knowledge (okay, so not exactly layman) like you could be suffering from depression. I know how you feel and you're not alone. The only recommendation I can make for depression, which I suggest taking with a heaping teaspoon of salt, is that you might want to see a psychologist.

I don't think you'll really benefit from the "Einstein was autistic" argument, so that's why this is first-- get it out of the way before the stuff I do think will help. But all the same, have you heard of Debbie Greene? She has NLD and profound disability because of it, but has been successful all the same as a writer and an elementary school teacher. Her IQ is above average.

Though personally, I think something about the NLD community is toxic, because given identical symptoms, those with a diagnosis of NLD seem to suffer lower self-esteem and greater disability than those with a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome. That's why I generally shun the whole community. My tentative guess is that it has something to do with the fact that the available literature is focused on explaining that those with the diagnosis will never be capable of certain things (including many things which are learned skills and which aren't even universally impaired) and when it does talk about positives it does so as if they were useless islands of ability that will never amount to anything, using phrases like "illusion of competence" to describe academic success.

Probably the most frustrating experience I ever had with a professional who claimed to treat people like me was the time when this one idiot tries to explain to me that no, I cannot learn from pictures, I cannot think in pictures and I am only capable of learning with purely auditory information. I know that this is false, but when I argued she told me I just argued for the sake of arguing. And that's false too. Luckily, when I saw her, it was before the full effects of utter rejection on my psyche had made themselves fully felt, and I had the self-esteem left to know that she was wrong and I was right. Later on, though, after I'd been beaten down a little more and it had sunk in, when people said things like that, I believed without question that I was impaired or incapable or lazy or whatever. I got very used to disregarding praise because mostly it only ever came from my parents or grandparents, making it somewhat suspect.

Sorry if I sound sharp, but don't compare your insides with anybody else's outsides. I spent a long time watching how easily other people seemed to do everything, succeeding at things I found really hard. But now what I know is that I can't judge how much work it took and I can't judge how many other things the person can't do.

And menial, unskilled positions are a start. There are people who never have gainful employment. Is it possible that you could develop another skill (such as writing, which despite what you say you may have some talent at) and do it on the side, perhaps bringing in enough income total to satisfy your financial needs? Or have you considered working at a menial position with the potential for advancement? (The example that comes to mind is In N Out Burger, if you have one near you.)

But I don't think asking for skills will help. Instead, do you know what you'd like to be doing, if you could make enough money at it and keep the job? (Doesn't matter if it's ridiculous. If anything at all comes to mind, say it. Trust me.)

This is getting kind of off-topic, but if anyone minds that they can answer to me, ya hear?

EDIT: oh, and I forgot to mention it's taken me six years to learn Algebra, but now it looks like I'll be passing Algebra 1 soon, and if that keeps up it means I might be able to pursue my chosen career in spite of the math. So if you repeated the course less than twice, it may be you can still do it.

Of COURSE dyslexia. Although I love to read & the only thing I'm good at is writing & dyslexia would make both of those things much more difficult, it still would not affect my life in any social ways, or at least not many. I could be a very successful person if my only problem with life were dyslexia.

Though that line of reasoning sounds fine, also bear in mind that dyslexia is another "invisible" disability-- people don't automatically make allowances like they would for someone in a wheelchair. Even people who know you have it don't automatically make allowances. That means repeated failure and blame, which isn't pleasant and can cause self-esteem issues. *shrug* It does depend on what sort of person you are, I guess-- whether you can bounce back from criticism when you know it's unfounded.

Kiley and Dandelionfireworks~


Thank you both for your AMAZING responses to me!! !! I have VERY MUCH to say in reply to both of you. It's just that I didn't see your responses until now as I was posting in another thread. It's very late here (3:43am) and considering how much I have to say to both of you, (all of it positive ) it must wait until tomorrow.


Suffice it to say for now that you both have made me feel much better
and much more hopeful than I have for a very long time!! !

I will make it priority to get back to both of you tomorrow (Sunday.)

I'm just too weary to say much more now and i'd just be typing
gibberish if I attempted to do so.

Thank you both again for your immeasurable kindness and incredible
insights!! !