Is there such thing as 'mild' Aspergers?

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I have some mild symptoms and some are bad so yes there is mild aspergers

Different people have the different traits to varying degrees. No two Aspies are the same. But Asperger's is Asperger's.

I was told mine was mild, probably because by 15 (when I was diagnosed) I'd gotten rid of the more obvious traits. I have repetitive interests, poor social skills, pace, stim, and some sensory issues involving touch. When I told someone I know who has a brother with it she said that I was very high-functioning, so my symptoms aren't obvious at first glance because I've gotten good at hiding them.

The way I understand it, autism is a spectrum disorder, so a person on the spectrum can have just a few mild quirks to being severely impaired. Whether someone's particular place on the spectrum is Asperger's or not depends on fitting at least several of the criteria, and also whether it affects his/her life and ability to function in a significant way.

So you hide some traits that would have made your case count as more severe in the diagnosis? Maybe this confirms that there's not really a high/low functioning aspect to it? Or that it's partially curable? On the other hand, autism is a spectrum. Maybe Asperger's is just the name for the highest-functioning end of autistic disorders? The only defining difference, after all, is that people with Asperger's don't usually have delayed speech development. A more obvious interest in making friends is supposedly a characteristic, but I think it's fairly hard for people to say that a non-verbal person is going to be able to express their desire for human interaction so I have my doubts about that definition.

Meant to add this in earlier,

For me I have an extreme need for repetition and routine, I have sensory issues, I have interests they are strange but I have them, I have a bad time with social skills, I never understand jokes and always take everything literally, I pace around on the phone, I stim, and other things. But it isnt so bad that its severe but it does have impact on my life everyday.

This is what I was thinking.

When I was very young, people told my parents I was autistic.

Until my teens, I was the epitome of Asperger's Syndrome as defined by the DSM-IV and in no respect mild.

In my teens, I started to make an attempt to be more "normal" by taking up the study of neurotypicals and I slowly started to figure out how to at least appear NT.

Now, I can pass fairly well in light or one on one social situations and I am usually met with doubt when I tell people I have AS.

There isn't as much depth to it as I would like, however, and the illusion that I don't have AS can put me in some difficult situations unfortunately.

From what I can derive from my sister, I still miss a ton of social cues even though I make a point to watch for them very carefully, and I have difficulty reacting to situations in real time because of my slow processing speed. People don't seem to detect this but I would have reacted in a more ideal manner if given the time to better analyze the situation, and would have better expressed myself as a person.

I still have to wear particular clothing and cannot tolerate anything itchy. I remove the tags from ever shirt I own. I'm still very particular about my shoes and when they discontinue the style I prefer, that tasks me with having to find a new style which is suitable. This can take a while.

I still have horribly "autistic" tendencies. They just renovated the emergency room and I think the new waiting room is quite nice, and to be honest I'd like to go and sit there frequently but I know this isn't an acceptable thing to do.

And I still lack whatever it is that makes life so easy for NT's. I do not have the same motivations for mundane tasks, I'm still quite inept and making close friends, I still have fascinations with things which would seem odd to most people, and I still have what I can only assume to be a non-NT thought process.


Parents I know what your kids are doing when they seem incredibly fixated on their hands or a leaf.

If autism and Asperger's exist on a spectrum that gradually blends in with neurotypicals, then it's difficult to say where Asperger's ends and NT behavior begins. If Asperger's was a spectrum all it's own, ranging from those who have significant social problems to those who are just really shy and quirky and have difficulties making friends, then everyone would be on the spectrum except for those stereotypical shallow NT jerks.

I agree with what spooky13 is saying: you either have it or you don't. I don't believe in self-diagnosis because while some people may hit the nail right on the head, there are plenty of others who are introverted, have occasional awkwardness in social situations, are reserved, and like to do their own thing instead of conforming to peer pressure--in other words, are introverted NT's--who label themselves as Aspies for some reason. To have Asperger's, you need to have significant social impairment, problems with language and communication, and restrictive stereotyped patterns of behavior. People with true Asperger's need to have the rules of communication spelled out to them. Instead of learning them intuitively, they learn them by reading books, going to therapy, or observing how NT's behave.

Mild AS, in my opinion, is when someone with Asperger's learns to cope with their difficulties and hide the most obvious aspects of their disorder from people, so as to appear "normal."

The way I see it, mild Aspies are no different to NTs - we have the same feelings, desires, emotions, anxieties, obsessions, and everything else in human - yet we just take things differently.

Here is an example (before I accidentally start up a 10-page long argument about ''NTs are this and Aspies are that'').
We may be sensitive to loud noise, so are NTs, but we may become more worried or bothered by it. Say if there was a loud bell above my head on the wall, and it was to suddenly ring loudly any minute, without a pre-warning. An NT will see it there and think, ''oh, a bell,'' and carry on with life. Then when it rings, the NT might jump up in the air, then forget about it after a few seconds, and not worry about it at all, and even forget it's there again. But an Aspie (well, I will) will most probably keep looking up at it and worrying when it's going to ring and make them jump, then when it does we would probably fly up in the air, then become more paranoid after.

Here is another example (in case somebody takes the first example the wrong way and writes angry posts and ect)
Nobody really likes their routine changing. All over Christmas every NT has said, ''I will be glad to get back to normal again after Christmas'', but NTs probably wouldn't become obsessively upset that their routine has changed, and could most probably adapt to the change more quicker than an Aspie can (or me, anyway).

I don't know how all you Aspies feel about yourself, but this is just how I've discovered how people really are. I mean, if nothing happened to NTs and nothing bothered them and nothing affected them in any ways, then whatever would they have to talk about? That's just the way I see it - I suppose people on here will disagree, but I just had to write this in.
I have Dyspraxia, and mild AS, and I just know I'm not different from NTs - yet in other ways I am. AS is a very complicated thing.

One more example is with meltdowns. NTs get angry, anxious, annoyed, sad, upset, ect, but can deal with it in another way. They don't go into meltdowns from sensory overload or panic attacks - instead they will express it all in a different way. They might throw things across the room in a temper (some, not all), but they wouldn't have a meltdown like an Aspie would.

That's exactly what I do. It's annoying really, because I stand there chatting nicely to my next door neighbour, and I come across as normal - then the next day I might have a meltdown involving shouting, swearing, banging (and my voice seems to carry), and next door would probably think, ''what is the matter with that girl? I can hear her voice screaming and shouting - but she seems normal. Does she turn into a nutcase every other month or something?'' That's where AS catches me out. I appear normal and happy - then when I go into one I get people confused. If I was really disabled and was acting abnormal all the time and appeared abnormal to other people, they will understand the meltdowns, but when I come across as normal every time they see me then hear me going ape indoors, it's that much more embarrassing.

I'm new here. I also wonder if a very mild form of Aspergers is possible. I read all comments, but I still have questions. Most people say "when I was diagnosed" and I wonder when, how, and by whom?

Isn't Aspergers a kind of genetic problem? I read that the brain is built slightly diferent than from NTs. Can you have an "objective" answer on this like DNA test or brain scan?

Or is the diagnosys based on behavioral observation only? And how does the doctor handle the very mild forms of it?

I took the Aspie-quiz, and though I am "very likely neurotypical", in some traits I score more like an Aspie than NT.

In some areas I do behave like an Aspie, so am I just a geeky NT or a very mild Aspie?

Why do I care to know? I think it would help me understand a lot of things about myself. I have a friend who has an autist child. He told me that he actually has a mild form of it himself. Analysing his behavior under this light helped me understand a lot of things that happened in the past and also about our relationship. All pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

That's why I want to know.

I'm pretty mild. I'm kind of klutzy and I sometimes have a hard time talking to people, but I don't really have trouble with subtle cues, sarcasm, literal thinking or body language.

You could just be an NT with many of the traits that Aspies have. There are no traits that are AS specific.

I think that you're asking the wrong question. I think that the question that you should ask is whether AS-specific resources can be useful for you, and I suspect that the answer is "yes".

Why wouldn't there be mild AS if it is a spectrum disorder?

I believe I am mild. I scored 163 AS/53 NT on the RDOS test. I guess that actually sounds pretty Aspie, but I don't feel TOO impaired by what I have. I can work, and it is a job spent talking to other people. I have friends. Most people think I am strange, but not creepily so, so they don't avoid me or anything.

My main issue is my lack of connection with the rest of humanity. I have only felt deeply for about 5 people in my whole life. I have trouble keeping friends and making them in the first place. I just constantly feel on the outside of things.

I think you are right. Could you please tell me where I can get more information about the AS-specific resources that might be useful for me?

I have a very similar problem. It's not that I don't like people, I just don't care much about them. It's ok if they are there, but it's also ok if they are gone. I don't "miss" people. I can spend weeks alone in a cabin and not miss anyone.

I can read people very well and understand their feelings but I can't feel these feelings. "I understand your pain, but I don't feel it".

I lack empathy.

As a strong systemizer, when someone is telling me about their problems, I listen like they are telling me about their broken car's engine. I am looking for patterns, for a solution, so that they stop suffering.

At the end they get no compassion from me, only "listen, that's what you should do to solve this problems." Which makes you a "cold" person. And I think to myself "they don't want to solve the problem, only talk about it." But that's exactly what most people want to do, exchange feelings and emotions, right? Not me.

I am almost 50 so I have learned to control my reactions and fake some compassion. But if someone gets me off gard and tells me something like "my fiancee left me 3 weeks before the wedding", I will probably say "lucky you, you found out he was a jerk before you married him." No "oh, how sad" and this kind of stuff.

So I tend to befriend people that are similar to me. I actually don't know the inner feelings of my "friends" and they don't know mine becaus we never talk about emotions but only about "issues." It's normally only an issue per "friend", issues we both care strongly about.

I used to keep going on and on about the same thing but I have learned to control this, too.

With the exception that I fiddle with things and stare at people while talking to them, most traits I have that are also common to Aspies are the ones that play inside the head, so that noone can notice. But these few traits are very strong.