Do you have a learning difficulty?

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Never been actually diagnosed as such . When I was 6 my parents were persuaded to take me to Great Ormond street as my first school in Thailand suspected I might have what is now called cerebral palsy. This turned out to be negative and any further exploration of my difficulties was dropped. My prep school headmaster described me to my public school headmaster in 1969/70 as bad at drawing and writing(dysgraphia?) and badly coordinated (dyspraxia?) and my report card at Felsted(public school) said I was disorganised and messy(executive functioning difficulties). I was quite good at arithmetic, average at algebra, but really struggled with geometry and trigonometry.
Nowadays such things would be markers for suggesting an evaluation by an educational psychologist, but back then there was no follow up to those observations.

What first pointed me to NVLD as a possibility, and also lead to the possibility of autistic traits, was searching about discrepancies in performance re verbal vs spatial/non- verbal. As I was curious whether that suggested anything.

Here is a list of things I know about myself

Social interaction problems.

Have difficulty with small talk and initiating conversations.

Only couple of friends in 3D over 60 years

Much better at verbal IQ questions than non-verbal/ visual spatial.

Not good at constructional/manual/practical tasks. Can’t do jigsaws
meant for children.

Started doing well academically but gradual decline starting at 9.5

Had to have handwriting lessons.

Bad at sports especially gymnastics.

Have difficulty when it comes to organising and planning.

Messy and untidy

Poor sense of direction and afraid of going too far in case i get lost.

Not good in crowds as difficulty judging distances and get overwhelmed
by the toing and froing

Poor balance- was nearly 14 before i managed to ride a bike.

According to my stepdaughter- walk like I’m drunk

Poor drawing skills.

Struggle with change.

Assorted mental health issues(general+social anxiety,depression,delusions, mood swings,paranoid thinking)

I was "diagnosed" with NVLD when I was in college and took an IQ test for the first time. Since NVLD isn't an "official" diagnosis according to the DSM, the "diagnosis" came from my IQ scores. I had a 17-point difference between my VIQ and PIQ, and NVLD usually is present with a 15-point difference or greater. More telling, I had a 35-point difference between my Vocabulary subscore and my Perceptual Organization subscore. I had suspected that I had NVLD for several years prior to taking the IQ test. Sadly, I "fell through the cracks" in school since I always met benchmarks for math. For example, on a state standardized test I took in first grade, I was in the 99th percentile in reading and the 50th percentile in math. You would think that would sound off teachers' alarm bells, but since I was still average in math, I wasn't referred for help/testing.

I liked what you said about algebra vs. geometry/trigonometry. I'm actually really good at algebra. It was the first math that I genuinely excelled at. I think that's because it's all logic and rules. So, that is the reason I was able to advance as far as I did in my science career, because most of the math I needed was algebra-based. However, I have always been abysmal at geometry, and trigonometry was, by far, the math I was the worst at. I found calculus easier than trig, which really shouldn't be. But then again, calculus does have a good bit of algebra.

I do think I would have been referred for NVLD at preschool age if I had grown up in today's world. I was hyperlexic and had taught myself to read at age 4, but my preschool teacher complained that I couldn't hop on one foot or skip. My motor skills were really poor, and they still are, just not as profoundly. I knew I could never be a lab scientist because of how terrible I am with my hands. I'm all about data.

One thing about NVLD that I don't fit is the poor visual memory and the great auditory memory. I have a form of photographic memory for what I read, and if I can't "see" it, I don't understand it. But my auditory memory is nothing special. I do horribly with auditory instructions. But this may be because I genuinely believe that I have both NVLD and Asperger's together, and AS is often associated with strong visual memory skills.

I'm very proud of how far I've come on my own, without any formal interventions. To be honest, my memory is what got me through most math courses. Well, that and my algebra skills. I'd memorize how to do word problems step-by-step, even though I had no idea what I was doing, and that plus the algebra would allow me to pass. Some things in math I just can't learn. One area is physics. I do okay conceptually, but any time the math is incorporated, I fail miserably. But one thing I'm most proud of is my 3D visual skills. I vividly remember being in my 6th grade math class and not being able to understand how a heart shape has symmetry. Sometime during my teen years, I developed 3D visualization skills, and that allowed me to take organic chemistry in college and actually understand most of the stereochemistry.

The only thing I regret sometimes is how, if I didn't have NVLD, I would probably be exceptionally good at physics and other heavily math-based sciences. I always feel inferior as a scientist for not having those skills.

I am sure I was not hyperlexic. My father says I must have started to read before I was 4.That was because sometime before the fall of 1960 (I was born January 1957) I was mentioning Disney Walt . I could only have got that from the index to the set of encyclopedias my father had bought that year.

The stuff you listed sound like a combination of autism, dyspraxia, learning disability and the usual comorbids that go along with all that. All of which I have been formally diagnosed with.

Social interaction problems. - Me too.

Have difficulty with small talk and initiating conversations. - I'm nonverbal and withdrawn

Only couple of friends in 3D over 60 years - Me too (except the 60 years part)

Much better at verbal IQ questions than non-verbal/ visual spatial. - Me too.

Not good at constructional/manual/practical tasks. Can’t do jigsaws meant for children. - Me too (I can do jigsaws but it takes me forever)

Started doing well academically but gradual decline starting at 9.5 - I've always done poorly with most academics.

Had to have handwriting lessons. - Me too.

Bad at sports especially gymnastics. - Me too.

Have difficulty when it comes to organising and planning. - Me too.

Messy and untidy - Me too.

Poor sense of direction and afraid of going too far in case i get lost. - Me too, badly.

Not good in crowds as difficulty judging distances and get overwhelmed by the toing and froing - Me too.

Poor balance- was nearly 14 before i managed to ride a bike. - Me too and still can't ride a bike.

According to my stepdaughter- walk like I’m drunk - Me too, I stumble a lot and fall down easily.

Poor drawing skills. - Me too.

Struggle with change. - Me too.