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I think there's probably a lot to this. It may not explain all of the difference, but I bet it explains some of it.

Very interesting post. And I think that also is probably one of the narrative threads in the real world which partially explains what's going on.

And philosophically speaking, I think it's okay for either a girl or a guy to be 'ditzy' or weird or creative or uniquely themselves. Practically speaking, this probably does make it somewhat less likely to bring success with relationships, school, jobs, etc. And, so it's all to the good to try and teach people additional skills, if it's done in a respectful way. But it is often not done in a respectful way. I mean, even for quote-unquote 'normal' kids does it really make that much difference whether they learn to add and subtract fractions in third grade or fifth grade? No, of course not, but it sure makes a difference to the school system!

On one episode of the classic TV show Leave It To Beaver, Beaver asked his Dad how often he had to add fractions with unlike denominators. His Dad said, hardly ever but that's not the point. And he went on to explain, I think, that the point was to learn how to learn and learn how to finish projects. And that's fine as far as it goes. But I think it's also the point that we shouldn't have such a rigid time schedule and so negatively label kids.

If we could broaden 'normal,' that would help all kids. And at the same time, if we could win over more people to the idea, well, sometimes different is just different. Different doesn't mean better, it doesn't mean worse, it just means different. That would almost be heaven on Earth for us on the spectrum! And I think one of many worthwhile goals for political activism.

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PS 1000Knives, I would also in what you were saying at the beginning that NVLD is a purely neurological diagnosis whereas AS is based on subjective stuff. If you have time to tell a little more about this, I'd be interested.

Well, nonverbal learning disorder, to put it shortly, is an IQ gap. Obviously, it's only diagnosed if it causes dysfunction or problems, as usually kids don't get administered WAIS type tests for no reason at all. But yeah, my "verbal" IQ is like 130+ but my nonverbal IQ is only like 80. Basically, NVLD, they administer tests for your verbal IQ and performance IQ, and if there's like a 15-20 point gap in the numbers, then you have it. However, my case, the gap is sort of extreme, then even reading on this board, one guy said his gap was like 130+ verbal, then like 60 nonverbal. But yeah, it's not subjective like AS, and there's sorta less "spectrum" I mean obviously there's spectrum, the guy with only a 15 point gap probably will have less problems than someone with a gap like mine, but the "meaning" of the disease is sort of the same, and the cause is very concrete. The cause is simply just right brain dysfunction in one way or the other. It's pretty similar symptoms wise as if an adult gets a head injury that affects his right brain.

But yeah, does that make sense? AS is diagnosed based upon observed behavior, for example, if as a child, you lack empathy, have special interests, etc, they'll observe your behavior pattern and give you an AS diagnosis based upon your behavior pattern alone. That makes it a psychological disorder, as psychology is only about behavior, and the science behind it is really not very concrete. Not to start a big anti-psychology thing, but for example, homosexuality was considered a disorder until DSM IV came out, but now it's not? Why? Because we as a society have learned to adapt or live and let live with homosexuals. It's not that homosexuality has gotten to be more or less of a disorder, it's just we as a society have accepted it. So, psychology obviously has it's uses, but it's weakness is that it's entirely subjective.

Meanwhile, NVLD obviously would be picked up with observed behavior initially, but it's perceived occurence is actually kind of rare. I read somewhere the statistics for NVLD are 1/1000 of the population, whereas AS statistics are like 1:100 of the population. My friend diagnosed NVLD, for example, was originally suspected to have ADHD, but when they did the testing on him, the gap showed, and thus NVLD. Now, NVLD is neurological but it can cause psychological symptoms, ie, depression, anxiety, all that stuff, but the NVLD is the root neurological cause.

So for my case, I'm probably like 99% likely an "Aspie." However, the NVLD would be the root cause for the "Aspergers" in my case. NVLD "symptoms" tend to be pretty much the same as many Aspergers symptoms. http://www.nldline.com/ Is a good website about NVLD. For me, probably the big reason I didn't get diagnosed AS or get my NVLD diagnosis earlier was that I went to a Christian school, where my behavior was pretty much loved, and my explanation not fitting in with "normal" kids was that I was a good kid, and those kids were being bad. That was how it was explained to me. Also, you were forced to get along, as the class size for your entire grade was like 20 people. It's hard to be vicious enemies with people when your entire social possibilities are 20 people, and only 10 other guys of those 20 people, you're going to get included in stuff simply for the sake of convenience. Adults loved me, and still do, whereas kids my age I feel like I'm being around barbarians or something most of the time. That, and in the Christian school, you know, your parents money is directly going to the school, so they have much more incentive to make sure you learn stuff. So any learning problems I had early on, were remedied by teachers who actually cared. I mean, the Christian school wasn't without it's issues, but yeah.

Uhm, if you're interested in NVLD more, google it, and if you'd like to see, see if you can find a verbal IQ test online, and a performance IQ test, and compare your results. If you see some ridiculous gap like I described, then you got NVLD. If you're looking for some telltale signs that someone has NVLD, without administering IQ tests to them, pauses and "umms" in their speech a lot, and/or slight stuttering. Another thing, too, if the person types out consistent 5 paragraph or more essays on messageboard posts like I do, it's pretty likely they got it. Basically, the reason I type so much is that in my mind, I have like, pages of thoughts in verbal form, generally typing something out doesn't require me to "expound" on what I know, but rather condense it for others. In my experience, too, NVLD people have this tendancy to like, "look" normal, a bit better than "Aspies." I'm 99% sure I know a girl with NVLD, she has the same mannerisms while skating as I do, she has the same pauses, she drinks a gazillion cups of coffee, and she also has to condense everything when we she writes stuff like I do.

Hope this is helpful, and yeah, sorry for all the paragraphs, haha.

I'm not a big believer in IQ tests, straight up. There's a lot of criticism of them, and much of it I agree with. And I also like the idea that there are at least eight different types of intelligence (verbal, mathematical, interpersonal, intrapersonal like an artist or a poet, etc, etc, even a type of nature-oriented intelligence where a person is good at classifying and categorizing things, although there seems like there would be more to nature-oriented intelligence than just that.)

All that said, I do kind of like the idea that the gap itself between verbal and nonverbal intelligence is significant.

Now, to take an extent, just because a bird is exquisite at flying and leans toward flying, it might be okay at walking. If it practiced walking and built up its muscles without overtaxing itself, the bird might become surprisingly good at walking.

Or, I read a naturalist talking about bears. He wrote, no, the bear sees just fine, people think because the bear has a very finely honed sense of smell that it doesn't see well, but no, it sees average for an animal.

Now, with me, poker is one of the things that has taught me a little bit of right-brain social skills. Just the fact that someone likes their hand or doesn't, and accepting that that's enough and I'm probably not going to know more. It's a little bit feel and texture and going with the flow and accepting that I'm sometimes going to be mistaken, that combined with baseline odds, whether there's scare cards on the board, etc. (These days I only play poker for points in a league. Playing for money the upswings and downswings are inevitable and punishment. Winning $400 over two days helps less than losing $400 hurts.)

You might have your right-brain forays, too.

The funny thing is, almost all of psychology is left-brain oriented, at times clunkily and clumsily.

(And yes, I can kind of end up writing an essay, too! )

Well, IQ tests aren't perfect, but they're something, I guess. Much better than just random opinions on stuff, and much better than Simon Baron Cohen going "LOL DO YOU LIKE HANGING OUT WITH PEOPLE? IF NO, THEN YOU HAVE ASPERGERS!"

As for right brain, I have forrays into it. Right now, for example, I've taken up figure skating. That's pretty extremely right brained. I'm not horrendous at it, but it's really hard to actually, like, do it by "feel" like most other people do. I really do have to verbally figure out my figure skating. There's these rare moments when I'm skating, though, that I'm able to skate without being in like, conscious thought, and I'm usually really great. Just the problem is, I'm not like, "in the zone" all the time. Like I feel like there's this random "zone" that I can get into, and once I'm in it, I'm just amazing, but if I'm not in it, it's a struggle. I'm not a "bad" skater, but mainly that's just due to the amount of time I put into it because I like it, not that I'm inherently good at it. It's quite frustrating when you see someone on rental skates do like, sit spins when you have trouble doing mohawks and 3 turns. Just, by sticking with it, you get better. So, while I'm not "naturally" good at figure skating, I'm able to compensate in my own way. I just sorta wish I was "in the zone" like that all the time, though, but it's so hard, it only comes on like once in a while.

You know, I really think for professional athletes being in the zone is a magic that happens occasionally and a person can't stare at it too hard in a sense. Or, it's like the business metaphor of holding clay in your hands. If a person squeezes too hard, it comes out between the fingers. Or the zen metaphor, allowing it to happen, not trying to force it to happen.

And I really think any rhymic activity potentially has the flow upside. I know in James Carville's book he wrote about running Pres. Clinton's 1992 campaign, he (James) wrote that "when you run, you dream." Again, magic that happens occasionally.