Do I have NLD?

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<I "revive" my old topic>
I am curious if my IQ test results mean that I have NVLD. VIQ is significantly higher than PIQ in my case, well above 15 points. But if Arithmetic would be in PIQ instead of VIQ, then the difference could be much lower, maybe even not 10 points.

My VCI (Verbal Comprehension Index) was 125 and POI (Perceptual Organization Index) only 100 (VCI was 25 points higher than POI). Working Memory Index and Processing Speed Index probably were about 120, freedom from distractibility also might be high. VCI - POI difference is 3 points higher than VIQ - PIQ difference.

In my previous post I typed some erroneous data about my IQ results. Here are my IQ test results:

Arithmetic 18
Information 17
Vocabulary 14
Similarities 13
Comprehension 13
Digit Span 11

Block Design 14
Coding 13
Picture Completion 9
Object Assembly 9
Picture Arrangement 8

I don't have a formal diagnosis of anything, but my verbal intelligence is far higher than my performance scores. I took one test and absolutely couldn't do the Block Design test. I was nervous and the tester treated me as though I was an idiot. If I ever do seek a diagnosis, I hope I get a tester who won't rush me and who treats me as if I had a brain in my head.

When I was five, I had a 40 point discrepancy between verbal reasoning skills (which were above average) and performance skills (which were borderline). Nothing was mentioned about NLD. Is it usually possible to have a 40 point discrepancy without NLD?

40 points discrepancy between VIQ and PIQ (with VIQ much higher) and PIQ in borderline range looks like NVLD. I think that you have a form of NVLD. I think that NVLD is a pervasive developmental disorder, not a specific one. It has too large impact on social, behavioral, emotional, occupational areas to be classified in one subgroup with dyscalculia and dyslexia. NVLD is distinct from ASD by itself, but I think that it could and should be named as a sort of PDD or, in some cases, a form of autism (when individual with NVLD has diminished social needs or diminished social drive).

I had significantly narrower gap (22 points) and do not know if I have NVLD. My Object Assembly result was 8 "large" points lower than Information result, if I had all VIQ results like Information and all PIQ results like Object Assembly, the gap would be about 40 points.

My PIQ is about 60th percentile and VIQ above 95th percentile. About 4 people for 10 have higher PIQ than me and only one from about 20 people has higher VIQ than me.

Going on online testing my VIQ ranges from 95-99th percentile and my PIQ averages about 3rd percentile. I scored 98-99th percentile on a sample Wonderlic like test and yet only average 72(3rd percentile) for non-verbal intelligence.

So you have huge VIQ-PIQ gap (about 50 points?).

I think that my pervasive disability is a sort of NVLD. I do not fit to ASD as well as to NVLD. I started to talk early (about seventh month of life), while walking started probably later (about 13th month of life)?

I had low birth weight (2150 g) and very low weight in comparison to body length (53 cm in Polish way of measuring newborns).

I might have quite serious infection (pneumonia) about 10th month of life. I heard that I can't speak normally for two weeks after it or some sort of intervention associated with it). I was diagnosed with F84.5 from ICD-10, not with F81.9.

My VIQ-PIQ gap is minimum 50. As far as I am aware I had a fairly normal birth . Was tested for what we now call cerebral palsy in the early 60s but the results were negative. This had been at the insistence of my first school that had picked up on a few things.

What were your birth weight and length? Do you have problems with eye contact and facial expressions? Did you have them in childhood? Does someone in your family also have any mental disorders? Do you have stims?

What diagnoses you received? I was diagnosed with Asperger's ten years ago, next with OCD and in 2015 with schizotypal disorder in addition to them. In 2016 I had diagnosis of (paranoid) schizophrenia for some time.

8 lbs 4 is quite large birth weight. 8 lbs is about 3,62 kg.
Do you suppose that you have NVLD instead of ASD or schizophrenia?
Do you have positive symptoms of schizophrenia like delusions or hallucinations? Do you have negative symptoms of it? Have you ever had obsessive-compulsive symptoms (especially associated with magical thinking)?
Do you have sensory hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity?

From what you've said I think you either don't have it or if you do, it's very mild. You said you don't have many social issues, and the Block Design is usually one of the weakest subtest for NLDers and yet you scored above average. Furthermore, your performance IQ itself is solidly average and none of your individual subtests are below the average range so it's not like your weaknesses are going to be noticeable.

My guess is you're just a regular smart guy with a preference for left-brained/analytical-verbal thinking and a relative (not absolute) weakness in more visual-creative thinking. Plenty of people with very high verbal IQ's are merely average in nonverbal skills.

For now in the poll there are 3 votes for not so mild NVLD, 3 for mild NVLD and 3 for no NVLD.

So it looks that I do not have NVLD or if I have it, it is very mild. But I have mental health diagnoses other than learning disorder not otherwise specified - Asperger's syndrome, schizotypal disorder and OCD. I get four psychiatric medications now: paroxetine, chlorprothixene, sulpiride, olanzapine.

I have ruling of moderate level of disability and care allowance because my disability started before 21st year of life. I have also ruling of total incapacity of work from Social Insurance Institution and social pension. I have job thanks to my disability certificate.

I rather understand metaphors and appear to have intuitive theory of mind. I have no preference of sameness and idiosyncratic sensory processing, although I strongly dislike too cold or too hot water during a shower. I did not think about looking at eyes before reading about mental disorders at about 16 years old. I do not fear shame in quite many shameful situations.

I have never driven a car although I am 27 years old now. So I have not driving license. I have no friends and colleagues since long time. I was bullied in school a lot in childhood and early adolescence.

You're better off asking a psychologist with or a psychiatrist, not strangers on the internet.

I "refresh" my old topic.

I have imposter syndrome from time to time which says that I have just nonverbal learning disorder instead of pervasive developmental disorder and autism spectrum disorder. It can be unpleasant experience.

I read that Byron Rourke decades ago supposed that "autism is NLD plus global language impairment".

I would think that difference between "NLD with social awkwardness" and ASD is quantitative, not quantitative.

I read that there are neurological differences between ASD and NLD. What is "NLD" which is neurologically different than ASD? Is it developmental visual-spatial disorder? I would say that DVSD is not similar to ASD in symptomatology and DVSD is about visual-spatial cognition while ASD is about social-behavioral impairment. I think that ASD and DVSD can be obviously co-morbid. I think that non-autistic person with DVSD should not be "weird" in social-behavioral area.

Is "high-functioning" ASD without visual-spatial weakness somewhat like being a high sensitive person with good IQ?

Is poorly functioning (especially in adulthood) Asperger's a kind of combined neurodevelopmental-psychiatric disorder with a lot of co-morbidities, often including NLD profile?

I would say that many people who would be diagnosed with Asperger syndrome have co-morbid DVSD which makes their verbal skills considerably stronger than visual-spatial skills. I think that the difference between non-autistic DVSD and autism with DVSD profile is that non-autistic DVSD has core impairment in visual-spatial skills and does not cause socio-behavioral "weirdness" or ineptitude while autism with DVSD is in its core socio-behavioral "weirdness" and ineptitude with DVSD neuropsychological profile.

I have primarily non-visual thinking, my thinking style is predominantly non-visual. I have "poverty of visual thinking", but no aphantasia and probably even no hypophantasia. I can have somewhat detailed and vivid visual thoughts, but they are generally fleeting and vanish rather fastly. I have small amount of visual thoughts in my mind generally. I have mostly verbal, conceptual, logical, abstract thinking, usually I have not so much visual-spatial thoughts visible in my mind.

I did this visual-spatial intelligence test (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/test ... gence-test) and got such a result: Your score on the test was average. It seems you have a good foundation of spatial skills, but have not yet mastered them.

16.12.2025 I did this test (https://mensa.dk/iqtest/) and I scored IQ 126 but I used almost all time (it took me above 39 minutes for 39 questions while there is 40 minutes for 39 questions), it is a test which appears to be similar to Matrix Reasoning subtest from newer Wechsler IQ test versions and similar to Raven's Progressive Matrices. When I did this Danish IQ test above 10 years ago first time, I scored only 98

In WAIS-R in 2016 my scaled scores in performance part were: Block Design 14, Coding 13, Picture Completion 9, Object Assembly 9, Picture Arrangement 8. In verbal part of my WAIS-R test, my scaled score in Vocabulary was also 14 and my scaled scores in Similarities and Comprehension were also 13.

I read about eight proposed criteria of developmental visual-spatial disorder/nonverbal learning disorder here: https://childmind.org/article/nvld-deve ... rder-dsvd/ (A New Take on Nonverbal Learning Disorder (NVLD)). I do not know if I meet at least four of these eight criteria. I have diagnosis of Asperger syndrome since 2008 and I wonder if most of individuals with ASD (especially without intellectual disability and with mild or no functional language impairment) would meet at least one of proposed DVSD criteria.