Severity

Post Reply New Topic

You don't need a driver's license to not be 'severe' lol. See how people in NYC travel. ~50% of their people use subway or something similar.

Moderate

I need job-coaches to help at work. I staff that comes to my place for a few hours a day 3 days a week to help with errands, appointments and stuff so I don't have meltdowns, etc. and I get help from university disability services so I have a note-taker and I do my tests in a quite room by myself. I can't drive.

D'oh! I should have voted for Mild.

I'd say mild because I can go to school because there are a lot of things I can do without help, but there are things I need help with like crossing roads, socialising and (a bit) school work.

I tried pretty much that same set-up in 2007, but wasn't able to cope and ended up in psych hospital. Okay, maybe I'm severe compared to the fellow WP folk.

Mild to moderate.

It all depends

I think part of it is how well an aspie thinks they function. Before, when I thought all these things were a big deal (though I did not have a name for it at the time), I had extraordinary difficulty. Now, though, I don't care about my issues so much and I find I'm functioning much better.

I wasn't sure whether to choose 'very mild' or 'mild'. Technically, yes, I can work, etc. without help/accomodations providing I choose carefully a job that I know will not be beyond what I am capable of. At the same time, though, people who don't know of my diagnosis usually begin to think after a very short time that I am slow, weird, rude, and so forth, and I run into problems when I begin making repeated mistakes because of poor memory and being confused by instructions. So I'm not sure if I need assistance in the way that this poll probably means it, but I do really need people to understand that there are a few areas in which I have some difficulty and to be a little patient with me.

Ah, cool to hear of somebody else who can relate to that. I've never met one before.

I also don't really know how to rate my severity, but listening to explanations of some of the symptoms of 'worse' kids I often was like 'they can do that? I can't and I'm a decade older!' (or I was surprised they did something at an age I only did years later) which seems to put me into the severe category for some symptoms despite my functioning-label compared to the group of autistic kids where I live.

I can't rate myself according to those criteria so I didn't vote, but I'm self-diagnosed so maybe I don't count, although I doubt many people who see me on WP where I'm not camouflaged would argue with my self-diagnosis.

I excelled at school, was disillusioned and overwhelmed at university but did well since by then I knew the routine of academic assignments. However, I couldn't focus myself enough to specialize in anything - I was more interested in humanities than in sciences (by far), but I thought everything was connected, and I couldn't isolate any one area from the others.

After graduating I was able to work menial jobs and was often very appreciated (although at other times I couldn't get hired) but I'm too old now for people to believe I'm deliberately "slumming it" for while before getting comfortable so now I can't get hired anywhere.

I have excellent self-help skills, better than many NTs. I never do anything foolish or thoughtless. I can't drive because there's too much to keep track of, but I can ride a bike and I can even manage to do so in the city centre if need be, although I prefer cycle paths.

I'm not socially interactive, although I would like to be, but I can ask questions and find out things I need to know, and if people ask me for information I know what answers to give them. If I slip and say something odd I know how to cover it up afterwards.

I'm resigned to a lot of it now but I find it interesting each day to see what she'll have to deal with, and what she'll come up with in response. She often gets underestimated, but not always. She's never gotten any help with life, and on those few occasions when she's timidly asked for it she's been brushed off as a brat.

I voted before I realized that the original post defined the choices for voting. If I could I would change my vote to "Very Mild." Next time I will read the OP first.

Well, I can get through school without accomodations - that's what I've been doing the whole time, seeing as I only learned about AS fairly recently and don't have an official diagnosis - but I could have certainly used some help, especially when I was younger. So I voted mild.

The driver's license was the first thing that wasn't in the "severe" category for me. Before that, the description of being unable to work and requiring special education (in my case, home-schooling or a private school with fifteen students) fit me. I do have this job now, after five weeks I'm starting to really fatigue because there's too much chaos even in such an orderly environment, but at least I have an aptitude for this work, unlike for most jobs...

I didn't vote either because, for me, it varies.
When it involves me interacting with other people it would be severe, prolly, because I have a lousy track record and am still not comfortable with 99.99% of them.
Motor vehicle department: Very mild because I can drive without any problems whatsoever.
Job department: Severe because of the lousy employment track record and problems finding work, being motivated to look, avoidance behaviours.
Certain thought processes are very mild while others are moderate. I am good at metaphors, comparing, infering, understanding literary symbolism and can see the big picture most the time so I would say I am very mild there.
Moderate would be processing language from others and I am often reluctant to talk with them or engage in conversations. I am stubborn about this and most the time I won't discuss anything with them. When stressed out I rant and rave at family members and peseverate on the same subject.
Moderate in listening to others or interested in their lives, etc. I can talk to them, just stubbornly refuse to.
Moderate sensory issues when in a busy environment and around numerous persons.
Living without help from anyone except for financial is very mild. I can take care of my personal needs, take care of the house, yard, shop, prepare food, organize a complex menu and use recipes to make food from scratch, house cleaning, painting, landscaping the yard. I am fully independent in this area and do everything myself.

I don't drive because I get overwhelmed even being in a passenger's seat. People in NYC and other cities don't drive because catching a cab or the subway is just more convenient, and cars are expensive and parking can be a pain in the city.

I'm severe in that way.

I want to work out a point based system and I started too but I don't think anybody here would do it manually if it were too long.

If AS were the only thing going on, it would be severe since neither school nor working is possible right now; but, since there's other things going on, like Bipolar, making AS one component of a whole, decided to rate it as moderate.

(Hmm, why, in middle of typing this was it necessary to get up Right Now to wash skillet that had already been sitting on stove for 4 hours needing washing?)

The logic being that multiple moderates accumulate into an overall severe.