DSM-5 ASD Severity Scale 0-3

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The ageist distortions are apparent to us, the elders of the tribe, but not to the youth-focused clinicians and definers of DSM criteria. It's just another extension of an intrinsically ageist culture. Many older people with very real physical illnesses are brushed off by the medical profession who ascribe symptoms to "it's your age".
Seniors on the Spectrum - SOS...

Haha! Good one.

I guess I am really confused as to what kind of supports you get? Is it like wellfare or something? How does a person diagnosed as an adult get, or require support. Especially when he/she has been struggling through their lives for so very long?

After retirement, I became very ill, and both of these factors caused me to become completely socially isolated for a time. After my most urgent medical issues were resolved, (this took four years) the challenge to connect with people was a major factor to address.

Fortunately Autism NZ has a qualified support person/advisor employed specifically to assist adults. Not diagnose, just assist and advise as requested by the person seeking support. She was really good at her job - on the spectrum herself - and encouraged my reconnection journey in totally supportive ways.

I found a Social Anxiety Meet Up Group into which I fitted extremely well. About half of us are on the spectrum, many others are shy, gentle people who need to feel secure before they "unfold their petals and bloom", and bloom they do. We get together to socialise and support each other in general ways - we don't sit around and exclusively talk about ASD, OCD, social anxiety etc, though we act respectfully to one another's sensitivities. I have made very close friends there. There are lots of other activities the group organises as well as our regular social meet up - outings, picnics, camping, dinners, films. Ages range from early 20s to senior age groups. Unusually, the group seems little affected by ageism (a pleasant surprise) and the youngest members seem to particularly relate to the oldest members, especially when they seek advise or support. Equally, I have found support from all age levels when I have needed it. I did try a friendship group but that was full of pushy, game-playing NTs who were looking to network for their business interests, it was ghastly, though it was all part of the learning curve.

That's the way it should be. Diagnoses shouldn't be used for personal satisfaction. wtf. If there are no observed deficits, then there is nothing on which to base a diagnosis.

I can mask socially so well, you would believe that I am a game-show host. But, that experience for you would yield exactly zero information about my screening-test and factor-test scores, my lifelong characteristics and my factor diagnoses unless I described them to you. Many psychological professionals have described how, when attempting to diagnose and adult with Asperger's Syndrome (AS) or other autism-spectrum disorders (ASDs), clinical observations are expected even to the exclusion of complaints and history ("people lie"). As such, the DSM-5 criteria make an accurate diagnosis difficult at best, yes? This is compounded in the United States by the lack of an accepted, standardized, diagnostic test, and the continuing misunderstanding by many professional about adult diagnoses. So, these influences become a perfect storm of contraindications for American adults. Now, in that scenerio, who wins?

I don't see what any of that has to do with my comment.

I do.

Starkid, if you had lived 65 years before you realised you had always been on the spectrum, you would understand, in all likelihood. But you haven't, and you won't.

That's dismissive b.s. I said I didn't understand the relevance of a response in relation to my comment, which has nothing to do with this sort of life experience you mention. I didn't say anything about not understanding the general meaning or importance of that response.

So what, it's difficult to get diagnosed if you've been hiding your whole life. Does that somehow justify giving out diagnoses just to make people feel good? No. Does it justify handing out diagnoses even if the clinician can't verify your symptoms? No. Therefore, the comment appears to be irrelevant to my comment.

Thank you!

So I was right, your comment was irrelevant to mine?

Have it your way, as you like. I think it is impossible to explain to much younger people what it is like, as a much older person, to finally discover that you are not a flawed NT but a person on the spectrum with powerful strengths - we were stayers, we had to be. That does give us satisfaction, all the sweeter for all the decades that we waited for it.

Maybe it's impossible because you are talking at them instead of with them, like you are doing to me right now. "What it is like" has no bearing on the fact that diagnosis for the purpose of mere personal satisfaction is an abuse of the system.

Well written! After having been in Roosevelt's "arena" for the last three decades, I have been described by many others who knew little about me (and cared even less) than the few brief facts that my Wrong Planet profile describes. Now that I realize that certain of my (then unknown) characteristics were what the others were referring to when they criticized me publicly, I take great joy having been called those names. I actually mean "thank you" when I say it to them because, without their continued uninvited involvement in my life, I might forget the good feeling I had when I first learned of my likely AS and realized that I had done some pretty cool things despite it all.

I'd like to chip in on the age thing. Here's my situation and my issue with it all.

I never, ever considered myself to be on the spectrum until I was already 27 or 28. That's where I first heard about Asperger's even. Which in turn might also indicate how much I wasn't in touch with the world if I never heard of these things.

But with my history of therapist vists even when the DSM III was still used, along with my constant dodging of the bullet by starting a course in college or uni, dropping out and collecting government funded scholarship (which is how it works here in The Netherlands) and pretty much rinse, repeated it until I wasn't eligible for it (you only have so many years to receive), I eventually hit a brick wall... and that's where my journey into aspie-land started. I never heard of it, yet I kept failing in education ánd employment for reasons that now seem quite obvious.

I never sought out help in late teens and 20's because I never gave the end of the line a thought and just went living on day by day.. or in this case schoolyear by schoolyear. That by itself might say something about the support on gets for failing in school again (because; let's face it... in an interview for a new course, school surely knows about your past)... that's how I kept under the radar.

Now I'm 32, no education, racked up scholarship loans and the only one optimistic is the government, thinking that I could eventually find "something"... yeah of course they're optimistic, they want their loans back, lol.

So I never "hid" behind the notion that I couldn't do something because I was on the spectrum; me being on the spectrum actually only became apparently after I already failed way too often within standardized employment and education.

These terms ("factor-test scores" and "factor diagnoses") are new (at least to me). Could you please describe what they mean? Thanks.