Intellectual & Academic Profiles of Children with Asperger’s Disorder or Nonverbal Learning Disability

1
Intellectual Academic Profiles of Children with
Aspergers Disorder or Nonverbal Learning
Disability
Marcia N. Gragg, Joseph E. Casey1, Christine M.
Drummond Adam D. Kayfitz University of Windsor
1Ozad Institute
Intellectual Academic Profiles AD NLD

• Results
• AD NLD groups did not differ significantly in
  verbal abilities
• NLD group had VIQ significantly higher than PIQ,
  no VIQ/PIQ difference was found for the AD group
• AD group had significantly higher
  visual-perceptual abilities than did the NLD
  group
• only 1/11 of the AD group, and 14/25 of the NLD
  group had VIQ/PIQ split greater than 15 points
• AD group had significantly higher performance on
  tasks involving identifying missing parts in
  pictures, assembling blocks to match geometric
  designs, and assembling puzzles
• two groups did not differ significantly on any
  other intellectual tasks, including arithmetic
  tasks
• no significant differences between the 2 groups
  in academic achievement, including reading,
  spelling mathematics
• both groups showed better reading spelling than
  arithmetic, significantly higher for the NLD
  group only

• Introduction
• some researchers suggest that most children with
  Aspergers Disorder (AD) have the same cognitive
  profile as Nonverbal Learning Disabilities (NLD)
  (Gunter et al, 2002 Rourke et al, 2002)
• children with NLD, by definition, have better
  developed verbal than visual-perceptual abilities
  i.e. higher Verbal Intelligence Quotient than
  Performance IQ (VIQ/PIQ split)
• others suggest that the cognitive profiles of AD
  and NLD are distinct i.e. children with AS do not
  necessarily have better verbal than visual
  perceptual abilities (e.g. Barnhill et al, 2000)
• there may be partial overlap in the cognitive
  profiles of some children with AS and NLD
  (Gillberg, 2004)
• Rationale and Hypotheses
• to compare the cognitive academic profiles of
  children with AD and NLD
• we expected that a minority of children with AD
  would show a NLD cognitive profile

AD
NLD

• Conclusions
• the AD group in our sample demonstrated a
  different intellectual profile to the NLD group
• future research needs to compare behavioural
  characteristics of AS and NLD

Diagnostic Comparison

• Method
• Participants
• Consecutive cases of children referred to a
  neurodevelopment clinic who met criteria for AD
  (n 11 males, mean age 8.3) or NLD (n 25, 18
  males, 7 females, mean age 9.7)
• WISC-III FSIQ between 67 and 120
• Materials
• Weschler Intelligence Test for Children, 3rd
  Edition (WISC-III)
• Weschler Individual Achievement Test(WIAT)

See HFA/Aspergers/NLD study at www.uwindsor.ca/u
sers/m/mgragg/main.nsf
more females than other disorders
9 years