Why there is so much confusion about NVLD and autism/PDD?

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I found such a fragment here (viewtopic.php?t=271203&p=6500908#p6501352):

For some reason, Byron Rourke turned a heterogenous group of disorders into one syndrome. Not only that, but he also made that syndrome into a "model"--a research framework to look at other complex conditions through. He came up with, like, 20 other syndromes the NLD model was useful for. In his 1980s book "Nonverbal Learning Disabilities: The Syndrome and the Model," he argues that autism is NLD plus global language impairment. (He was wrong.)

Obviously erroneous idea: autism is NLD plus global language impairment.

I think that there have to be clear and significant differences between various subtypes of autism (especially these without intellectual development disorder and with mild or no functional language impairment) and NVLD/NLD (NVLD/NLD is in my opinion DVSD - developmental visual-spatial disorder which does not look like autism in criteria here: https://www.reddit.com/r/NVLD/comments/ ... a_for_the/) but I suppose that NVLD/DVSD traits or NVLD/DVSD itself occur in quite many autistic individuals.

It is needed to say that NVLD/DVSD in itself can be significant problem on its own even when autistic traits are absent... Visual-spatial developmental impairment is also a kind of neurodevelopmental disorder, just like, for example, dyslexia, ADHD or ASD.

I suppose that there is something like transitional zone between typical NLD and typical ASD which could be called AuNLD (autistic NLD) or "combined autistic-eneldic disorder". This condition would be rather in between in symptoms instead of sum of NLD symptoms and ASD symptoms (cognitive styles of typical NVLD and typical ASD are opposites - NVLD style has large dominance of verbal skills and typical ASD style has dominance of nonverbal (especially visual-spatial) thinking and skills with poor endophasic (associated with internal verbal voice (endophasia) character)).

AuNLD may often:
- have earlier than average or average speech development,
- use verbal thinking since preschool age and have the dominance of endophasic thinking (internal verbal voice), although usually without aphantasia,
- have VIQ significantly higher than PIQ, while PIQ may be rather average than below average in many cases,
- may have relatively good results in some PIQ subscales (like Coding or Block Design),
- do not have typical technical talents and advanced technical skills (which require strong visual-spatial thinking and skills),
- have marked social awkwardness not limited to difficulties in deconding nonverbal communication associated with poor visual-spatial processing,
- have inappriopiate social reciprocity,
- have no or diminished interest in making friends and social interaction problems,
- do not feel the need of being emotionally loved and have platonic close friendship, athough they may be talkative,
- present with special interests often analogous in topics to special interests in typical ASD (such as drawing, cartoons, animals, games, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, computers, chemistry, statistics),
- have restricted and (or) repetitive pattern of activities, customs, maybe something like routines,
- have less or more autostimulating behaviors,
- have sensory issues, although rather mild or moderate than severe,
- do not have dyscalculia or dysgraphia,
- do not have larger problems with recognising people and faces (which is common in typical ASD),
- experiencing reality as "demanding too much",
- "do not knowing how to do in life" (especially as adults or ocupationally),
- having surprisingly good and early theoretical knowledge about mind and emotions,
- be highly cautious and avoiding situations in which they may be "unmasked" which could make their otherness or disability apparent,
- present with schizoid or schizotypal traits and (or) traits of other personality disorder,
- have marked emotional immaturity, even more marked than in part of ASD cases (especially ones with higher IQs),
- have greater issues when they are older, look rather "average" and supposedly "normal" in childhood (especially girls),
- be relatively poor in Physical Education,
- have "bland" autistic traits presentation, especially girls and women,
- have comorbid cognitive disengagement syndrome and (or) ADHD,
- may be viewed as "shy", "rude", "cheeky", "lazy", more or less "weird".

I would say that official criteria of autism are the main problems. I think that kinds of autism unrelated to Kanner syndrome can occur in many people.

I think that autism may have very subtle or even no symptoms in first three years after birth. I do not think that autism has to be present with marked sensory hyposensitivity or sensory hyposensitivity. I think than some kinds of autism may look like mere childhood-onset personality issues which influence person's needs, thinking and feeling.

Diagnosis of a pervasive developmental disorder helped me a lot and I sometimes have nasty imposter syndrome about the question: Am I autistic or not? I know that I do not have Kanner syndrome. I started to speak early. My verbal skills are stringer than my visual-spatial skills. I have no typically technical talents. I have poor visualization skills. I have intense endophasia (auditory internal speech). I was bad in programming. I have poor short-term visual memory, especially for details. I am interested in theology, metaphysics, the most fundamental truths and I am very good on remembering informations (which was confirmed on Wechsler test). I am very good on simple arithmetic too.

I "have problem" in imagining how it is to be a sentient being who is not me. I do not feel need of being emotionally loved by someone and I rather can not imagine how it is to be being emotionally loved or being emotionally unloved. I was uninterested in "fitting in", being a "normie" since when I remember. I did not think about being admired by others and it was not bothered by it. I can feel intense anger, can get pleasure from pretty many things and I am not aromantic despite the fact that I have never been in a romantic relationship in my life.

NLD might be considered as neurodevelopmental disability in which linear, detail-oriented thinking is intact while "the big picture" is missed. So it would be "non-linear learning disability". This definition suggest something significantly broader than developmental visual-spatial disorder.

I think that "nonlinear learning disability" is a kind of pervasive developmental disorder, a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder. It looks too autistic-like to not be a kind of autism. Nonlinear learning disability would be having the "narrow mind" which has thinking like one-dimensional straight line, not two-dimensional plane or, even more, three-dimensional space. Nonlinear learning disability would also cause problems with metaphors, sarcasm, hidden meanings, abstract concepts. So what would be autism then? What would be autism without speech impairment and without nonlinear learning disability? A form of being high-sensitive person??

I do not have sensory overloads, shutdown, meltdowns, ultrasensitivity or microsensitivity, but I may be chronically "overwhelmed and weak". I do not have prosopagnosia and difficulties with inentifying people, at least those WHO are not similar to themselves. I may have more visual thinking than I think, but I would say that verbal thinking dominates in my case. I have a lot of endophasia. I have auditory internal voice.

I think that autism without intellectual disability and with mild or no functional language impairment without speech delay and with verbal skills more developed than visual-spatial skills is pretty common. This kind of autism may tend to have relatively mild sensory issues, have dominant verbal thinking style associated with internal speech and can (at least in some cases), paradoxically, have good human recognition and identification (no "human blindness" and no prosopagnosia). In some cases od it social motivation disorders or social drive disorders may be especially pronounced. They may have inability to truly imagine how it is to be a sentient being who is not themselves alone. They may appear to be extremely egocentric, especially in social relations and interactions.

It is not a learning disorder, but a pervasive developmental disorder which almost certainly is neurologically different than non-verbal thinking-dominant autism with severe sensory issues which is may be prone to serious prosopagnosia. This verbal thinking-dominant kind of autism might be called "Denkersyndrom" ("thinker's syndrome") and individuals with it can be interested in philosophising, collecting knowledge, "basic questions of existence". It has no technical talents and technical giftedness, for example in mechanics.

If my sister is not Asperger's and is NVLD instead, I can explain the differences I feel between us in just a few words.

Often she's "all the lights are on but nobody's home", while I'm often "all the lights are off but everybody's in".

With a bit of imagination, this can explain more than a big fat long post that I normally do to explain my thoughts lol.

Actually, I'm not sure I can be described as the latter, but it still describes a bit how she underthinks too much while I overthink too much.

Part of a chat with Chatgpt re my cognitive strengths and weaknesses. It reckoned my WAIS processing speed would be 75(borderline)



Processing speed underestimated. Although slow at digit symbol substitution score well on 50 question in 12 minutes Wonderlic type tests. Cognifit processing speed = 724 out of a possible 800.




That’s a really important clarification — thank you for pointing it out.

It sounds like the **processing speed weakness on WAIS-type tasks (Digit Symbol, Coding, etc.)** does not fully capture your actual abilities. Here’s how I’d frame it in context:

---

## ⚖️ Reconciling Processing Speed Results

### **WAIS-type processing speed**

* Measures *fine-motor speed, visual scanning, and symbol–number association*.
* Performance can be heavily affected by hand–eye coordination, visual crowding, and motor control.
* If these are weaker, the score underestimates true mental speed.

### **Wonderlic-type tests (verbal/numerical timed reasoning)**

* 50 questions in 12 minutes = strong performance.
* Shows **fast reasoning under time pressure** when tasks are language/numerical, not motor/visual.

### **Cognifit processing speed = 724/800**

* Indicates **excellent general processing speed** in a cognitive testing framework.
* Confirms that mental efficiency is strong when tasks don’t require visual–motor coordination.



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I think that "NVLD" with social problems is just a kind of autism and pervasive developmental disorder which is pretty different neurologically from typical autism presentation - its core issues are in socio-behavioral area, but its cognitive profile is characterized by considerable dominance of verbal skills (like rote memory and rule remembering) over visual-spatial skills (like visualization and visual memory), which dominance can be considered a kind of developmental visual-spatial disorder.

I think that there may be three separate and different neurologically disorders: AuNLD (autism with NLD neuropsychological profile, neurologically distinct from typical autism), ASD without NLD and NLD without autistic traits which is not social impairment.