Some people make it up

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Attwood actually describes four different coping mechanisms he's identified in children diagnosed with AS.

The one I have in mind is when an autistic child determines that they're right and others are wrong. They don't see any faults with how they are, just in terms of how others respond to them. They're either not aware of or in denial about their lack of social skills. Some take this strategy into adulthood, like my biological father. Which is why we never see each other or talk to each other anymore.

^^^Those are not the people I'm talking about though. Those people would probably deny that they have autism or even autistic traits (like my father would deny, but he almost admitted it over winter break, when he performed similarly to me on an objective test on computer).

Yeah, I caught on with your previous reply. Previously, I hadn't connected "believe they have good social cognition" to "actually has good social cognition."

I went to through different diagnostic processes. The outcome of the first one was that I had some aspergertraits in combination with social anxiety and the outcome of the second diagnostic proecdure was a severe form of aspergers. Take your pick.
The second bunch of experts told me that they had no doubts whatsoever about the fact that I have aspergers. I specifically asked them.

I find it prudent to reiterate the fact that I don't really care if I have "true autism" or not.

"Autism" is just the label experts gave me, and I'd be open to other explanations. I have impairments (that's obvious), but it's just a point of contention as to what to call them.

I don't find it helpful to speculate on the validity of the DX of others seeing as how mine is still in the air. I just wish the best for each and every one if you,

As seen in respected and fully diagnosed members of WP, there ARE married and working people who DO have it.

And it is also true for many of the diagnosed, that they have learned, as adults, to suppress certain traits and improve their skills, which seems like "they were worst when younger" -- and yet they are genuinely and formally diagnosed, and are indeed on the spectrum.

Learning coping skills so that one is improved somewhat in performance, if you will, is not an automatic indication that they never had it, are faking, or are manipulating anyone.

Your post is incredibly harsh and lacking in understanding. It also sounds a lot like me -- and I hope that wasn't what you had in mind. When I realized at the age of 47 that my whole life (including childhood) showed strong Asperger traits, I WAS REPULSED, not glad, not hoping I could use the possibility to "manipulate", or make excuse for my failings, or any of the other things people accuse people of. I was actually horrified at my "aha" moment. It may turn out that I'm not on the spectrum when I get my evaluation, but, A) I'd be surprised as all HELL, B) others who know me would be surprised as hell, and C) it would be a relief because maybe there's something else wrong that can be changed or cured or medicated.

Trust me, I wouldn't PICK this for all the gold bars in the Bank of England.

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So one thing that occurs to me in reading through this is that people who have social communication issues have a history of being misunderstood and rejected. It is easy to read comments like the doubtful ones here through the lens of that experience and perceive them as more of the same.

This will particularly be true of people who actually do have Autism. I think I tend this way. I have been fortunate enough to get employed and married, so I feel the posts that question whether such things are possible for people with ASD are about me, personally and the mere thought of being doubted in this way pisses me off, probably because I have such a history of being misunderstood and rejected.

I don't know how typical this is of AS and HFA people, but I always try to draw as little attention to myself as possible in public. I do not tell people about my diagnosis, except anonymously here. I was quite anxious about this before going to my first GRASP meeting. I was afraid of being "out" in public.

The idea that people would seek diagnosis as part of an attention getting scheme seems implausible because I can't imagine telling people about it, unless they are already people I trust.
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I suppose it is different for others, though this is one of those things I have trouble with--it's sometimes very hard to see that other people do no think the way I do about everything, even though the evidence of this is plain.

I don't doubt that there are probably some people who lie about having autism. I just think they're quite a small number (even in real terms), and most of them probably don't pursue a diagnosis. Basically, I'm not going to lose sleep over them.

My reason for not doubting this is that I know someone who lied about having terminal cancer so they could get the "kickbacks" (basically attention and presents from friends). They seemed to be a very normal person, but evidently not.

I am slightly... OK, I am extremely suspicious of claims that people who have innate difficulties "reading" other people can accurately diagnose complex neurological disorders within seconds of meeting people. For one thing, how do you know your diagnosis is accurate? Do these people present you with a fully psych assessment after you meet them so you can judge if your snap judgement was accurate?

I know diagnosed people who are middle-aged, married with kids, and have high-paying jobs. The measurable differences on eggsperiments between this group and neurotypical people are small, but sometimes reach statistical significance if I am clever about which non-obvious metrics are calculated and compared. Another group of younger people is clearly different from neurotypicals based on obvious metrics. I know that the results from the younger group represent an autistic pattern found in autistic people and broad autism phenotype amongst neurotypicals, but the other group, I am not sure, and it will be interesting to sort out. They could be subgroup that is more adapted into neurotypical behaviors due to older age and the fact that they have maintained relationships and careers for years/decades and couldn't have done that without major adaptation, or maybe other eggsperiments will be more sensitive to their differences, or if there is no difference on any of a battery of tests, maybe they are part of neurotypical spectrum instead of autism spectrum, as they don't behave like broad autism phenotype, which behaves like autism without diagnosis.

^
Interesting. Please share future results on WP.

I agree and would like to know, how the neurotypical spectrum can be defined, while in itself the existence of a neurotypical spectrum makes perfect sense.

Are you saying these three characteristics: being middle aged, married with kids and having a high-paying job define a group who don't have autism or barely have autism?

What does age have to do with this, I wonder?



So I am confused by your description of BAP. These are neurotypicals who behave like autism with out diagnosis? If they behave like autism and autism is defined by symptoms, doesn't this mean they are just undiagnosed autistics?

Im sure your research will bring greater understanding, but the way you have put this has me confused.

What we know right now is that this group is not significantly different from neurotypical group in important measures of a set of eggsperiments, which are computerized/quantitative/objective. Current working hypothesis is that this is subgroup of autism that is difficult to distinguish from neurotypicals based on these particular measures. Future eggsperiments of different types may or may not detect significant differences between this group and neurotypical group. If future eggsperiments like a social/non-social battery of brain/cognitive/behavioral tests all show no differences, then hypothesis may shift towards possibility of misdiagnosis (maybe they are indistinguishable from neurotypical, because they are neurotypical).

Age is important, because age gives people time to adapt to neurotypical behaviors, so it may eggsplain why the older group with good outcome doesn't show clear differences from neurotypicals in these measures. There are other measures that are relatively immune from effects of adaptation, so those may detect differences in future. The younger group is quite high-functioning too, with multiple college students and graduates, some employed, some living independently, but still clearly different from neurotypicals.

BAP is defined as people who are not diagnosed with autism or anything else, but score high on measures of autistic traits, such as AQ. Of course it is possible that some of the BAPs have undiagnosed ASD, but there are plenty of people who have autistic traits without having ASD.

It scares me to think of too much measuring going on so easily, it's better sometimes to be able to not be known as autistic. I hope you're unusual in being able to do this so easily, Btnnyr!

Dr Wendy Chung has some thoughts on this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8bqoFygczI

Don't worry, only researchers with devices and designs do this measuring and analyzing, so there is not this stuff going on around people to out anyone as autistic if they don't want to it to be known.