NVLD Non Verbal Learning Disorder?

[Anonymous]

My son was diagnosed as ASD but nonverbal learning disorder was on the list of ones considered. ASD ended up being the eventual diagnosis I think because of repetitive behaviors, and sensory issues combined with his social communication difficulties.

[Anonymous]

My friend's daughter was diagnosed NVLD 25 years ago.

Not everything is autism and the details make a difference

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Typically NVLD is a gap of 40 or more points between verbal and visuo-spatial scores. People with NVLD are usually highly verbal. My DC also has Turner Syndrome. It’s estimated that 90+% of people with that diagnosis also have NVLD.

There is current research on it:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11001940/#:~:text=Furthermore%2C%20children%20with%20NVLD%20showed,abnormalities%20in%20white%20matters%20tracts

This does not seem like autism at all. Completely different diagnostic criteria and description

It’s a really common autism profile to have a verbal, high IQ, but physically clumsy kid. My kid is ASD + DCD and could easily fit the criteria for NVLD if someone tried to apply that label. I don’t really care, but given that the vast majority of kids with “anxiety, ADHD and social communication issues” will be dx as autism these days, it seems purposeful to get the NVLD label and not autism.

If you have a practitioner who is familiar with both, it’s actually quite easy to discern. And I’m not sure how it could be a “purposeful” diagnosis. I didn’t pick it.

NVLD isn’t a DSM diagnosis. I’d be pretty skeptical of people claiming they can distinguish it from autism since there are no fixed diagnostic criteria for NVLD.

There have been fixed diagnostic criteria for years. The fact that it’s not in the DSM doesn’t change that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just irritated that I keep seeing people online saying his son is non-verbal. It’s a very confusing name for the diagnosis and people keep misunderstanding.

It’s not confusing. It’s a learning disorder that mostly spares language abilities. The fact that people who don’t know anything about anything think that NVLD means that the person who has it is “nonverbal” is—well, their problem. Maybe they don’t know much.

I always assumed that Non-Verbal LD was meant to clearly be differentiated from Language-Based LDs (Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia). It is not new and not confusing from this perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People are confusing non verbal ASD and NVLD. completely different.

Yes, those are different, but the old Asperger's diagnosis was often comorbid with or used for NVLD years ago. When I worked in the school system there were quite a few kids who either had both or one clinician said NVLD and the other said Asperger's. It doesn't matter that much. They often need social skills therapy to help with non-verbal cues among other things. There is a lot of overlap. It was surprising to get rid of the Aspergers diagnosis in the DSM because there is more difference between Aspergers and the more classic HFA (strong non-verbal/spacial skills/quantitative and weaker language processing skills). Just looking at IQ scores often both NVLD and Aspergers kids can have even 2 or more standard deviations between strong Verbal IQ and lower in visual spacial. The more classic HFA profile was the opposite-sometimes 2 or more standard deviations between strong visual spacial skills and/or quantitative and weaker verbal IQ.