Come talk to me about the difference between ASD and Dyspraxia

[waitingforgodot]

Have been doing a bit of reading and it seems that both present similar traits especially in pre-school kids.
How can you differentiate? Any info greatly appreciated!

My own entirely personal opinion (since I've got both) is that they are quite often one and the same thing. People thought ASC/ASD always meant stroppy rude uncommunicative antisocial people...until they started finding loads of us who actually like being with people but can't work out how to do it well enough until we're older. So I think a reasonable number of people were diagnosed with dyspraxia rather than ASC because they were more cheerful and wanted to be more social.

I suspect dyspraxia and ASC are all part of one bigger group, but that you can have people who really are just dyspraxic (co-ordination problems) and those who are ASC as well, and those who are just ASC and don't have any co-ordination problems.

That's not much of a summary but I'm too excited by all this snow...

haha! Thanks Amberlight.

There is a lot of overlap but the diagnostic difference is pretty clear.. children with ASD have the triad of impairments;
www.awares.org/static_docs/about_autism.asp?docSection=3

Even in the most able children with ASD the triad is still very much obvious whereas dyspraxia is more about the coordination side of things.

It's confusing tho because there is overlap and many ASD kids..esp aspies, are significantly dyspraxic too (oddly enough some severely autistic children may be incredibly well coordinated..)

My own son has moderate LDs moderate ASD and is dyspraxic, so a bit of everything LOL.
I think it's very difficult to really separate all the elements!!

According to the Dyspraxia Foundation, symptoms in 3 to 5 year olds include

Lack of imaginative play
Persistent language difficulties
Isolation within the peer group, often preferring adult company.

Is that not the triad of impairments?

meant to say, there are a whole list of other symptoms as well as those 3, including sensory issues.

II think the age listed for symptoms is prob quite important.. and also the reason that CAHMS are usually reluctant to diagnose autism too early..because of the overlap.. however in my own experience working for years with ASD/SLD children there IS a difference and one which becomes more obvious over time. A child who showed very clear triad of impairments would be diagnosed as autistic earlier than one with the 'clumsy' dyspraxic symptoms prevalent .

Children with dyspraxia (excepting those with severe verbal dyspraxia) can usually be educated in mainstream with reasonable support... those with severe triad of impairments are unlikely to be maintainable in mainstream after the early years..but it's pretty impossible to know how a child will develop in the early years unless the difficulties are very severe.

With my own son the concerns were all physical initially.. didn't walk til 2.5 didn't speak til 4..couldn't do anything other kids his age could do..and wasn't interested in other children either..but gentle and passive.
Now 12 he is still motor impaired.. can't walk brilliantly (wears afos for poor muscle tone) speech slurred and hard to understand,can't do shoe laces, writing is like a 6 yr olds in content and appearance... but now what is going to make his adult life dependent isn't the dyspraxia, but the autism, because while he can now talk..he can't converse.. he's a computer with a one way download ability!!

If I were able to truly separate the two I'd say the autism is the more devastating on how it will impact his adult life..because the physical disability we can work round.. aids, afos, bottle openers.. but the autism will prevent him from ever being independent.

That doesn't mean that dyspraxia is mild or anything I hastily add... I hate both.. just trying to sort of describe how they are different in their impact and hence how they aren't the same thing

Clear as mud, me
I don't know anything about your situation of course.but if you have a little one with symptoms of both/either I'd push for as much phyio/OT input as poss..because the sooner the physical stuff is helped the easier it is to see what is causing what!

So can you have verbal dyspraxia but not physical?

are the perceived social issues with dyspraxia more likely to be caused by sensory or motor difficulties rather than an autistic impairment?
( or does that make no sense to anyone other than me? )

DD is diagnosd with Developmental Co-ordination Disorder/dyspraxia, together with ASD.

The term "co-morbid" was used by the Paediatrician, to describe having both conditions. DD also has MLD too.

Thanks! Thats interesting. I am still curious to understand the diagnostic process for both and how they differentiate.

DS has the full classic ASD triad but few sensory / motor problems. His fine motor co-ordination with a computer trackpad at age 2 was much remarked upon and he could write all his letters at 2. But he walked late, can't ride a trike or kick / catch a ball at 3. The OT and physio score him normal though because although he's behind and a bit clumsy they think this is lack of interest / motivation / practice rather than a physical problem. ie there is no physical or motor planning reason why he can't do these things just he can't be bothered / hasn't got the attention span.

Greenspan's Special Needs Child talks about different processing problems i.e. sensory processing, emotional processing, social, visual, spatial, auditory, motor planning / processing etc. My DS has all of these except motor processing / planning problems; so I hope its not just those with really severe ASD who have good co-ordination! I would assume children with dyspraxia have more of the motor planning issues and maybe less of the other processing issues. Presumably all these things get processed in different parts of the brain. So some with ASD will have the motor processing part affected and some won't. I would have thought there must be MRI scans comparing dyspraxia and ASD??? MRI seems like it has the potential to give far more accurate dx than the current system of observation.

bubble2bubble, both ASC and dyspraxia seem to be caused by the brain making the 'wrong' connections or not enough connections or too many connections between different bits of itself.
In ASC, the bit of the brain that deals with people gets used as a filing cabinet for useful facts instead, which isn't handy.
I know I didn't crawl, struggled to ride a bike, was hopeless at sport most of the time, my handwriting is awful, can't do pottery, can't fold things, struggle to place things prettily on a plate when serving dinner - just about any manual task becomes a struggle between me and the items

The ASC means my brain dumps all the people-info somewhere totally silly and concentrates on facts, patterns, differences, details instead...and I have to herd it continually back into behaving itself and going to fetch details on who I'm talking to and what they're interested in.

My whole sensory world is different from that of other people, it seems. Whether that's dyspraxia, ASC or both I've no clue.

But the list of similarities between dyspraxia and ASC is extraordinary - I think it's about 90% the same from what I read.

My step-son is 8 and has a dx of postural syndrome (lives in france) which is so similar to dyspraxia. I checked the synptoms and they are almost the same.

The thing is, he has many many traits which are similar to my DS who has asd.
But he has bad motor co-ordination problems, which my DS doesn't have, he is just a bit clumsy.

Agree Amber - it looks about 90% the same to me as well, or more sometimes

I think if there is a difference it has to be in the social interaction? Could be completely wrong, but looking at my DD I think what seemed like issues in dealing with people were down to her gross motor difficulties. What looked like a fear of people was due to a fear of movement, the unpredictability of others' movement, the difficulty of finding your way in strange places. The fact that she didn't speak was also due to verbal& oral dyspraxia rather than - in EP speak - " lack of commnunicative intent".

Could be entirely wrong and probably dwelling on this too much!

I think you're right Bubble. We've wondered for ages whether DS1 (8) is dyspraxic or has AS. When he was younger it was much less clear and it is only very recently that it's become clear that he is definitely dyspraxic - His social skills are good in that he can 'read' people and is good at knowing how to react in different situations. But he suffers a bit in the playground because of his physical timidity and lack of skills - as he said to me the other day
'I'm an easy target' . When he was a toddler he would always sit just outside a circle of children and would back away from physical games.

That's interesting spil

Likwise, DD responds well to people, always notices if someone is sad, always the first to go to the child who has fallen over in the playground. But knowing you have really bad balance, can't speak and cant't run properly coupled with the motor planning issues causes such a lack of confidence

The way i think of it is that dyspraxia is primarily a motor skills problem and AS is a social and communication disorder. There are overlaps but you cant be dyspraxic if you dont have the motor issues no matter how poor your social skills are. You cant be AS if your social and communication skills are good and age appropriate no matter how clumsy you are. Its possible to be dyspraxic with or without social probems and its possible to be AS with or without motor problems. I know it can be very grey though and the symptoms can appear similiar. Many of the symptoms checklists online, particularly the dyspraxic ones do not distinguish between essential and possible criteria, adding to the confusion. The diagnostic criteria for AS , ie the DSM 1v which i think is the one most commonly used does not identify motor problems at all on the list although I know that some do. I think that most of the AS symptoms in dyspraxic children could be as a consequence of their dyspraxia rather than a condition itself but then things like sensory issues which are common to both, I find difficult to explain

That is what I was trying to say only better written

I agree with paranoid.

ds1 was first diagnosed with dyspraxia. This was via a test of his motor control, carried out by an OT. It is primarily a motor control disorder, but can have some symptoms of social and communication issues too.

As ds got older, his social and communication issues have become mroe and more noticeable, to the point where it can't jsut be dyspraxia and so he will be diagnosed with either asd or pdd-nos at some point.

I think early on it is def very hard to differentiate. We really didn't have a clue with ds. we originally suspected autism, then put it down to dyspraxia, and now it seems to have settled to both!

Ooh this thread is v interesting

hmm dc with svere verbal dyspraxia an be nornally educated in Ms.

I would disagee with that Ds has that and oral dyspraxia and he could not cope in ms not even in Ms it collapsed after just one term.Depends on how severe it is and if there is receptive issues to *

Bubble2bubbule your one of the few tthat come across with dc with both verbal and oral dyspraxia

ds does struggle with social skills down to fact he can not talk or keep up physically and even at 4.7 the gap is large and growing fast.He loves slapstick humor and sometime sdoes struggle to see when someone falls over tough if sees picture somene looking sad he canunderstand that

yes Phoenix - according to the last report " verbal & oral dyspraxia & a phonological disorder" I kind of hoped the SLT ws trying to make it sound as bad as possible so DD would get a place in the language unit, but it probably doesn't work like that

We had a long session with the (wonderful, brilliant, sensory trained )OT yesterday who now says that DD woudln't really tick all the boxes for motor dyspraxia . She does however still have gravitational insecurity - which creates numerous problems - and coordination difficulties, vestibular & bilateral problems,crossing midline still not really sorted, perceptual difficulties, and certainly auditory processing problems... etc BUT her motor planning really doesn't seem that bad