Cerebral Palsy and Asperger's

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In a post to the Love & Dating forum, I have already revealed that I have Cerebral Palsy, very bad eyesight, and probably Asperger's. For those of you who don't know what Cerebral Palsy is: it's basically just a fancy name for any kind of brain damage that isn't contagious or progressive, and which causes disabilities of a neurological nature. (See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy). The range of symptoms is very broad, but in my case it causes speech difficulties ("drunkard's voice") and poor motor control in my head and upper limbs. I do walk normally, however, which is somewhat atypical. I'm still trying to work out how my disorders influence one another, and even if they do.

Could it be possible, for instance, for someone who was born with "Aspergic" traits, but not full-blown AS, to develop more serious Aspergic tendencies due to an inability to communicate normally with parents and peers in early childhood? I feel that since I had very little "normal" interaction with other children till I was about 7 or 8, I've never had a chance to pick up all the subtle body language rules that ordinary kids just learn by playing and having fun together. Eye contact especially still eludes me completely. Besides not being able to hold my head still enough, I just haven't got a clue when to look someone in the eye and for how long.

All this has caused me to withdraw socially, since I'm not accepted anywhere really, tolerated at most. Fortunately I have a few friends who see me for who I really am, and I'm grateful for that, but I never will be a very social person I'm afraid. This relative isolation has conditioned me to pursue not social interaction, like other people, but peculiar, obsession-like hobbies, which seem to rotate in my affections. I've had a few "chess phases", for example, in which I didn't do much else than play online chess for hours. Music is sort of a constant obsession - I can basically listen to favorite music (such as Bach) all day, without being bored. Other hobbies are: reading books, browsing Wikipedia and just following links randomly, writing poetry, composing music. In between hobbies I usually worry about my situation and post to forums such as this one.

Thanks for hearing me out. Sharing your thoughts is much appreciated. People have been, for the most part, helpful and friendly here. What a wonderful place this is!

AS-CP link? topic

I am Dx AS. My only son has a mild form of CP--it only affected his legs, and apart from a slightly off kilter gait, you would not know now. He wore leg braces until he was 5 years, and walked at 22.5 months of age. He has no learning or speech differences, and has a driver's license, finished high school, has a part time job and will be entering the Armed Forces in the spring of 2010. He is also a bodybuilder. I never treated him any differently than his sisters. He is considered NT, as there is no social interaction differences. His 18th birthday is on New Year's Eve.

I am no diagnostician, and refuse to speculate as to a member's AS status. But I have had a suspicion for some time that perhaps if someone is treated as an outcast as an infant (like some experimental primates) there may be some personality damage due to neglect or ignorance, which, to me, is abusive. Not that AS is damage (it is a difference) but that abuse as an infant or very small child could result in some of the manifestations of AS. Now, this is just speculation, and I am not trying to tell you that this is what happened in your case.

At any rate, Welcome to WP, (as a certain other welcoming member would say to you).

Hello, and welcome to WP.
I am assessed as having Asperger's...but for a long time I had theorized that I might have some sort of mild brain damage. Since I lack the resources to be very clinically studied, It may be some time before I ever really know for sure.

I was born a month late, and i was pulled out very quickly with forceps.
I have heard that that sort of thing can cause cerebral palsy.

My mom always said that I seemed more like a preemie than a child born late...my hands and feet were very small and underdeveloped, and she was concerned over my motor coordination when I was very little...and worked on developing strength in my arms and legs...(she was always sorta into yoga)
regardless, I ended up being a toe-walker...and that persists to this day....and i have heard of toe-walking being connected to cerebral palsy...but I have also heard of it being connected to AS...

My speech is ok...I mean...I stammer, and i have trouble making linear sentences, but I don't have the drunk-speak...I have a childlike voice...

There is also the way that my fingers curl up, seen in photographs dating back to when i was very young...that is odd...and I most certainly have some level of dyspraxia
Also there seems to be some sorta issues with the left and right hemispheres of my brain...I could be wrong...but it seems to coincide with the way that I am left-handed/cross-dominant, have extremely poor vision in my left eye (which a more-wholistic eye doctor said seemed like it was the result of some sort of damage)

AND i have had head injuries as a child...

So...I could have some sort of sub-clinical level of cerebral palsy..by the definition that it is just some sort of brain damage...

But AS traits also run in my family on both sides. My mom has very ASish tenancies, and in my dad's family of architects, engineers and musicians there were some people with very strong traits.

I've had learning problems that sorta prevented me from excelling academically, even though I had really high test scores when I was young...Very strong ADD symptoms...very bad executive functioning problems.

Sorry to ramble.....

I once knew a guy with visible cerebral palsy....he was very gregarious and talkative and outgoing....He was obsessed with music....and was a walking musical trivia encyclopedia....His speech and motor coordination were all very off-kilter....but that did not prevent him from being a very enthusiastic musician....he played drums and sometimes bass in a band that my band frequently played with.

If this were true, all of my siblings would be autistic. This is a bunch of BULL!

Thanks for your reply! My congratulations with your son's birthday, although it's a bit early perhaps. Let's hope he'll continue to make such a success of his life.



Well, I wasn't mistreated as a child, nor was I treated differently by my parents, but the outside world just isn't very co-operative sometimes. Most of the times, disabled kids aren't rejected on purpose, but it's very hard for many people to really accept them as equals. Besides, most thought I was mentally backward because of my speech problem, so they never bothered to talk to me anyway.

With brain injury there's a very wide spectrum with regard to severity and I do believe there's a connection with that and Cerebral Palsy and ASD's.

One might consider perusing one of the older threads regarding whether people on this board experienced difficult or unusual births.

I do think that upbringing can enhance/exasipate existing conditions.

My friend's son has in a way, the opposite of what you're describing. When tested at Great Ormond Street, he was scored as really severely affected(whatever the proper terminology is) by Aspergers.

They were astonished by how well he seemed to function. But then if when they took a long hard look at what he had, it was a mother who went that extra mile to coach him in all the minutiae of how to function. This is a boy who kept on falling, and really hurting himself doing so. It took his mother ages to realise that even barely perceptible shifts in gradient of the ground were the problem. She then worked on that with him. The same work went in for socialisation.

Quite frankly, if we all had mothers like that, no matter what conditions we did or did not have, we would be vastly improved individuals than without a mother like that. So it stands to reason that not having help will decrease the probability of an individual of having all the traits of sociability, stability, confidence, etc that we would all ideally like to have.

My other siblings are fine, very social, very verbal, married, have children, employed, etc.

Yeah, I think it can be rather difficult to pick out AS when somebody already has a physical disability. One of my AS friends in real life is also blind; and it took them forever to distinguish Asperger's from the social distance that a disability can create. You couldn't even tell from the stimming, because blind people do that too just like Aspies do. It took a thorough evaluation, I'm told, to decide that the AS symptoms were above and beyond what might have been expected from the average person with his particular upbringing and level of vision. His special interests were part of what clued them in; those are unique to autism spectrum.

I had toe walking, sensory hypersensitivity, social isolation, echolalia, hyperlexia, memory capabilities, limited verbal speech and communication and I was an abused child. My special interests were limited to maintaining my sanity by keeping track of what was happening to me, which was cumbersome, and there was also nothing else allowable with regard to special interests in that sort of environment. As an adult I have enjoyed countless special interests however, which are always changing and evolving.

It seems like it could be possible. I mean, when you start talking about damage to one's brain, that could affect just about anything in various ways... Movement, intelligence, social skills, etc. The brain is the center for it all, so if something causes it to work differently, it seems likely that at least some people might get autistic traits from it.. especially if they started out with some mild traits already.. But it would probably be very rare.. I know two people with cerebral palsy and they both seem NT to me. One of them has it somewhat mildly, and i never would have guessed that she had anything at all if she hadn't brought it up once(although, after she told me i did start to notice that she has some trouble walking, but it wasn't obvious enough that i had noticed it before). She's probably not exactly an extrovert, but, from what i can tell, she doesn't seem to have any autistic traits. Then another girl with it i know is more severe and in a wheelchair, and she has tons of friends. It seems like she gets along with everyone and is even kind of popular. So, the social parts of their brains don't seem affected. They are both nicer than a lot of people i know, though.

All CP I have heard about has been due to a lack of oxygen when being born. The motor center is the first to be affected, AS is TOTALLY different.

I had a severe lack of oxygen when I was born and the "motor center [was not] the first to be affected" as you say. Motor function problems are indicative of a more severe brain injury so it is not the first thing to go as you say.

CP however is specifically brain damage which causes motor impairment. The OP is incorrect when he/she states that is just a term for any kind of brain damage. It actually states this on the referenced Wikipedia page: "Cerebral palsy (CP) (also cerebral pares) is an umbrella term encompassing a group of non-progressive, non-contagious motor conditions that cause physical disability in human development."
So if someone has brain damage which causes a learning disability for example, but no physical impairment, then that person does not have CP. Additionally, CP refers to damage which occurs before age 3. So while anyone can sustain brain damage which leads to motor impairment, older children and adults don't develop CP. Most causes of CP occur while the baby is still in the womb. A smaller percentage occur during or after birth.

If there is any confusion with regard to my postings, I'm not claiming to have Cerebral Palsy. The OP was asking if there may be a connection between CP and ASD's and I personally believe there may be but it is based only on my own impressions and experience.