It seems to be very hard to tease out NVLD, AS, ADHD. There are alot of overlapping difficulties/qualities.

At 10 years old, my son was diagnosed with NVLD by a psychologist based on:

social/behaviour difficulties
disorganization/forgetfulness/inattention
large difference between VCI and PRI (>99th versus around 85th)
low score on the writing portion of the WIAT

However, after doing alot of reading, I didn't feel that the NVLD diagnosis "fit" my son. His social problems are more to do with impulsivity, poorly regulated attention, and a self-centred world view. He does not have difficulty with reading non-verbal clues (body language, facial expression, tone of voice). While is spatial skills are not his strong point, he does well with math. His motor skills are average and he has no significant problems with handwriting.

A year after the first test, we had a full neuropsychological evaluation (teacher and parent behavior ratings, WISC-IV, all subsections of WIAT-II, and NEPSYII which included tests for attention/inhibition, executive function, memory, language and visual-motor integration). From this evaluation we came away with a diagnosis of ADHD-inattentive with EF problems and not NVLD. Our second tester felt strongly that a relative weakness in PRI wasn't enough for the NVLD diagnosis.

In the long run, I feel like it doesn't matter too much what I call my son's difficulties, its more about how to remediate them. We did decide to try ADHD medication after the neuropsych. testing, and DS has responded well.

Last edited by Verona; 10/17/11 09:25 PM.