Ph.D says Asperger's, NLD, schizoid semantic-pragmatic same?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm beginning to put less and less stock in labels..

Here's a quote from their book "Neurobehavioral Disorders of Childhood: An Evolutionary
Perspective By Robert Melillo, Gerry Leisman":

"It has also been noted that there is a similarity between autistic disorder and Asperger's
syndrome and that Asperger's syndrome goes under many different types of names, some
of the names are semantic-pragmatic disorder, right-hemisphere learning disability,
nonverbal learning disability and schizoid disorder"

I think there ARE differences between them, personally... I don't know when this book was written.. I forgot to check.. maybe they used to think they were all the same?

If you want to read more of this Ph.D.'s thoughts on neuropsychology, scroll down to page
11 in this online book below. If that doesn't work, it's on Amazon too, just search inside
the book for nonverbal learning disability or "schizoid".

This link might have to be cut and pasted in sections:

http://books.google.com/books?id=KG-BxG-
Y5D0C&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=%22nonverbal+learning+disability+and+schizoid%22&s
ource=web&ots=BYhu95Q6N6&sig=S9gt1AD__W06761s6Z9S-6CU9EY#PPA11,M1

AD, AS, NvLD and/or some of the personality disorders may be differing expressions of the same disease/disorder, natural variance and all; they may be different symptom morphologies depending on the severity of the same disorder/disease or they may be entirely separate entities.

Who knows?

Brain imaging will most likely be the diagnostic tool of the future (thankfully).

i think nvld is related to aspergers. maybe not directley but like a second cousin or something

I was just reading about schizoid disorder this morning. Apparantly, it's a lot like AS, but without the intense interests, obsessive behavior, sensory issues, and nonverbal communication issues. Schizoid disorder is defined by a lack of interest in social interactions.

I also question these labels. I think it's rare for labels and generalizations to be accurate in everything or everyone they're supposed to apply to. Reality is full of variations.

I believe i like to consider myself hypersensitive. I haven't got an official diagnoses of AS, nor do i plan to in the future. I believe in doing so, i would have given up on what makes me unique as an individual with these traits. I hope that i can better myself without the use of labels, drugs, or psychoanalist; to surmount my complexes and maintain what is best for me without losing my soul to outward interference, and my core belief that we are all created separate, yet equal.

That book looks interesting. Thanks. I just ordered it.

Respectfully differing from Sophos, I believe that nvld and AS are one and the same - or at the very least next door to each other on the spectrum. That's based on my own experiences of various assessments and also on a deeper reading of the research: there are more than a few researchers who make the same proposition.

I guess that the reasons for such doubt are rooted in the difficulty that the researchers have in differentiating. I believe we're only really at the start of what will become an explosion in AS research and knowledge. Perhaps the 'experts' will get their act together sometime. Meanwhile, I really do not think that anyone has enough information to be definitive right now.

This is the problem with trying to shoehorn folks into neat, simple pigeonholes. Even though we have broadly similar strengths and weaknesses, these manifest in such an amazing array of different ways at different times. I would bet that few of us would fit into the DSM IV at a first attempt by an assessor who lacks knowledge and experience (and most of them do, IMHO).

Well, I have NLD and I've had friends with Asperger's, and I don't consider us to have the same condition. But then again, it's not like I can watch myself to see if I seem as odd to others as they seem to me (yes, I can see the oddness, although I feel more comfortable with them than I do with NTs). When I was a teenager I wondered if I was on the spectrum, but that was before I knew about NLD. But that's just my personal experience. And anyway for me, my visual processing problems are a much bigger deal than my social issues, which are more minor, and also confounded with my social anxiety, so it's hard to tell what to attribute to NLD, and what to social anxiety. Someone whose major issues are in the social domain might be more similar to an Aspie.