Are poor motor skills characteristic of aspergers syndrome?

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In all articles about aspergers syndrome I read that people with aspergers syndrome have bad coordination and they have difficulties on sports, but I read here that many people with aspergers syndrome have good coordination and they are athletic and good on sports.

Are poor motor skills characteristic of aspergers syndrome or are another disorder which often coexists with aspergers syndrome

More likely than not I'd say. I've got no proprioceptive sense which makes minor muscle movement control difficult.

Based on all my years in school for kids with autism, about 50/50. Plenty of kids were good at sports and stuff. Lots of others avoided anything athletic. Some like me had very obvious coordination problems.

Ezra is the man to listen to in this case. He's around people with autism spectrum disorders all the time. He is not merely quoting theory; he lives the life.

Yes, it is very much a characteristic of Asperger syndrome. I suffered from significant problems with my fine motor skills in early childhood. For example, I was unable to tie shoelaces until I was about 10 years old. Before that, I wore shoes with velcro straps.

Why this is a symptom of ASDs I do not know. Perhaps it's related to cognitive skills?

I don't think it has much to do with cognition. It has more to do with a sort of subtle dyspraxia, I believe.

I believe some people with Asperger's have a subtle disorder of muscle planning which is not necessarily diagnosable as a disorder by a neurologist.

It would probably explain why I was always the last kid picked to be on the sports team when I was school...

I have always had trouble with motor skills. I didn't learn to walk until I was 2 1/2, and I had trouble with writing and cutting and those kinds of things. I am bad at any activity involving motor skills.

I usually wasn't picked to be on sports teams--someone else got that last spot to be picked!

I wasn't uniformly bad--I could actually do things like make solid contact with thrown baseballs.

My coordination is actually pretty good now that I'm middle aged--because I practice enough with things like dart throwing and writing by hand.

Me too I learned to walk when I was 1.5 years old

Yes, but not everyone with Asperger's or autism will have poor motor skills. Additionally, I suspect that some of us experience a natural improvement over the course of our lives. At least that's been the case for me. I was the typical clumsy Aspie kid, poorly coordinated with an odd running gait and the muscle strength of a wet lettuce. It was obvious I was so much worse at physical education than other children my age - one teacher accused me of not trying, even though I knew I was trying my little heart out - and that remained the case until I graduated from high school. After that I avoided most exercise until my late 20s because I associated it with humiliation and failure. Motivated by body pains and aches, I started exercise again in earnest three or four years ago. I can now run 3km and draw no more attention than any other jogger.

I reckon I would still be poor at team sports, but I have no wish to pursue those anyway because I'm not interested in the social aspect. I still have bad coordination whenever I do something new and it requires me to think about more than one thing at a time - but that goes for all things, not only sports or exercise. The point is, I have improved.

Bizarrely, I started walking at nine months. Go figure.

Personally, I was picked last in sport unless it was swimming, air hockey or table tennis.

I've only worked with teens in and out of spectrum for 16 years.

This whole picked last thing even went into areas where I was treated well (like baseball). I was pretty darn good (got a triple in my very first swing as a callup!) but my coach left me on the bench for the entire provincial championship. When I complained that it's pointless to stick around for the final game (we were upset and were already knocked out) I was told what a poor sport I was. I literally had zero errors the entire season. WTF? I also never made any team in school, even basketball (I was 6'4" in Grade 7). That's why I'm a goalie: no petty politics, no getting picked last and people expect you to be weird!

So, to get back on topic, I had serious balance issues, was clumsy with a capital "C" but I doubt it was due to Aspergers.

If you were on the baseball team, even as a benchwarmer, you weren't the "last one picked." I guess you were a reserve--but you were on the team! You weren't quite a benchwarmer.

You were almost 2 feet taller than me in 7th grade (what we call Grade 7). I was about 4 foot 8 then, growing to 4 foot 9 by the end of that school year.

I didn't make any teams even as a benchwarmer. I didn't make any teams even playing "left out."

I did get better at sports as I got older. I tended to go headstrong into sports as a kid, and make many mistakes that way. As I became an adult, I learned to relax. I never got any good at sports--but at least I could make a slow-pitch softball league.

I'm wondering if any of you have motor skills of a juggler or sleight of hand artist?

After a great deal of practice, I was able to juggle three balls for maybe ten seconds.