Is there any link between physical clumsiness and aspergers / autism please?

[FrannyandZooey]

TIA

Yes there can be. Clumsiness, problems with organisation and social problems can also be part of dyspraxia.

and high pain threshold, am I right in thinking that can be connected?

a little more info from NAS website:-

Body awareness (proprioception) system

Situated in the muscles and joints, our body awareness system tells us where our bodies are. It also informs us where our body parts are and how they are moving. For an individual on the spectrum difficulties/differences may be:

Hypo

• proximity - standing too close to others/not understanding personal body space
• navigating rooms - avoiding obstructions
• bumping into people.

Hyper

• difficulties with fine motor skills, manipulating small objects (buttons, tying shoe laces)
• moves whole body to look at something.

www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1070&a=3766

link to useful info page from NAS website about sensory problems and ASD.

Yes, a high pain threshhold can be part of ASD - if a child/person is hyposensitive.

thanks TotalChaos - I knew I could find by googling but also knew someone here would point me in the right place

Dyspraxia and asd can be co-morbid conditions

sorry MB, I don't know what that means - they are likely to occur together, something like that?

is it usual to have motor difficulties with things like bike riding, balancing etc but not with fine motor skills such as threading? or are the difficulties usually across the board?

afaik it varies. my friend (bullet who posts on here) has a son diagnosed with ASD who draws very well indeed, but who was very late in being able to jump IIRC.

yes- that's what comorbid means - that they exist together.

There is often a significant overlap.

So you often get kids with both conditions.

Similarly an overlap between ASD and ADHD/ADD

or ADHD/ADD and dyspraxia

this is where dd3 confuses people. fine motor skills are good, handwriting is good, but she is extremely clumsey, and bumps into everything. some people still ask me if she has AS or dyspraxia, i just shrug and say i dont know. she has some traits but not the whole lot iyswim.

thanks, very helpful

ds (dyspraxia) has great gross motor skills, but dreadful fine motor skills

Ds1 (ASD) is very clumsy. Part of it is a problem with gross motor skills and balance but also because he isn't very good at judging where he is in relation to everyone and everything else. His fine motor skills are delayed too.

Ds2 (AS) is almost the exact opposite and is very good at all the physical stuff. The only problems he seems to have with fine motor skills are due to being left-handed.

My sister who has AS was terrible at sports at school, whereas me and my other sister were both quite sporty. She also has terrible handwriting and can't spell despite being very intelligent.....

I was always excellent at sports at school, and played hockey at county level, however my handwriting is dreadful. Thank God for laptops.
My ds3 (who has autism) is 3 years old and can not jump, climb stairs, pedal a trike, etc., and his fine motor skills are affected a little, but not as severely as his gross motor skills.
My ds2(asd) is 5 years old, and has great gross motor skills, but is quite clumsy and gets tired writing, he can only manage 2 or 3 sentences at a time. He gets frustrated because as he told me today he "has alot more writing in his imagination".
My ds1(asd) still at 19 has problems with catching a ball, and does get physically tired, and is quite clumsy.
At the moment my ds3 has a very bad cold, and so is not able to talk, and can't make facial expressions either. I only knew he was upset, when Isaw a tear rolling down his cheek .
All my sons have problems with motor planning.

Ooh this is interesting - and again our DD's match up Misdee!!

I found it interesting talking to my mum about riding bikes... I decided that DD would never learn to do it with the stabilisers on, so we would go to the park and take em off. It was pure hell. I have never seen a child find it that hard to keep pedalling and stay upright.

I got back and told my mum about it all, and she said that my sister (who we also think is AS - many traits if not full iyswim) was exactly the same.

She was also very late to jump.

"is it usual to have motor difficulties with things like bike riding, balancing etc but not with fine motor skills such as threading?"

Yes, this pretty much describes DS1. He's always had pretty advanced fine motor skills but is always tripping over fresh air and won't even attempt to pedal a bike. He's sensory seeking, which adds to his clumsiness, because he's always touching things he passes with his hands and feet and does lots of jumping and twisting. He's usually pretty much black and blue all up his legs from the constant tripping and bumping.

flame, for now dd2 stabilisers stay on. she has got the hang of pedelling now. her stabilisers are slightly higher so only one touches the ground at any one time, so eventually i can guage when she has her balence and remove them. she can pedel about 3 metres with both off the ground now.

does your dd have a scooter (micro 2 wheeled jobby)? i have to say getting dd2 to scooter to school has given her heaps of confidence. she did start early (3.5years old) and suffered a lot of cuts and bruises, but now is pretty good. does need reminding to look where she is going.

also dd1+2 (dd1 is very felxiable but not clumsey, dd2 very flexiable but very clumsey) couldnt pedel trikes at all.

Ooh the one higher than the other sounds a good idea! She wants a scooter for her birthday, used one properly for the first time last week - it was hard trying to teach her to put her pushing foot towards the front each time but she was so chuffed when she finally got some speed!

On the bike question, DS2(AS) is just getting the hang of riding his bike without stabilisers at 7 but he is very nervous, We have just bought DS3 a scooter bike ( like a normal bike but no peddles), he is only 3 but learned how to balance on it very easily and I think it would have helped DS2 enormously.

DS2 is pretty bad at any ball catching etc., the video of the school sports day last year with him attempting to do the egg and spoon race (and holding up proceedings for what seemed like hours as he was moving at snails pace in order not to drop the egg) was funny and heartrending at the same time.

Intriguingly DS2 has horrendous handwriting but is very neat at drawing and colouring!. He also gets very tired and complains of feeling weak when trying to do written work.

DS (4.4) DX Aspergers.

Has always had fab gross motor skills, i.e. running, climbing, jumping, riding a 2 wheeler last summer aged 3.6

Has good fine motor skills, i.e. threading, playmobil (bloody tiny stuff to fiddle around with).

Have recently learned that he can write his name (messily ).

Previous to this has never shown interest/skill in drawing/colouring/writing.

BUT...he is sooooo clumsy !!

He falls over nothing, walks into people in the street, rides his bike at people, is always banging his arm/leg/head when he's playing with his trains or cars on the floor.