Asperger's Syndrome Functioning = 2/3 Chronological Age

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According to the AANE (Asperger's Association of New England) a child or an adult with Asperger's Syndrome functions at about 2/3 their chronological age. Do you think this is true?

Hard to say I suppose. Academically my son is WAY above average, but as far as actual play and such, he likes messing with the baby toys at times, playing dolls with the girls-will not ride a bike or anything like that at all...

Myself, heck, most people my age are working, are able to be very organized (at least with important documents and all), can do things easily on their own... I feel like I need a personal assistant half the time to help me out. I can't even clean my own house without spinning in circles for an hour, and all these people around me are doing thing after thing after thing with no problem, lol. I also prefer the company of children (most of the time) over adults, as I find them dull and boring, or too judgmental of others.... and when shopping I'm still more attracted to the more colorful/fun stuff, rather than typical "mommy" wear, which has made me the oddball on the street apparently.

No.

I believe we all have emotions below our age level and social skills too. But mental age, we are at the age level or above. Mental age is intelligence and I looked it up and I was right. Mental age is not social skills or emotions.

No, because it's silly to assume we function at the same level in everything. Maybe NTs do, but not us. At school, I'm every bit as good as the average neurotypical engineering student (yeah, that might be an oxymoron, but let's leave that for the moment!). On the other hand, what most twelve year olds can do easily by way of chores around the house I didn't learn til I was past twenty; and some organization skills that most teenagers find easy are still beyond me. Emotionally, I have a great deal of insight but very little control, so that I function like a six-year-old who somehow knows a great deal about cognitive and emotional psychology, and can only use preventative strategies to deal with problems rather than trying to control myself when it's needed. I learned to drive ten years later than most, and am just learning to run smoothly (the prospect of actually going running is new to me, and I think I will rather like it once I don't fall down constantly!). Socially... wow, I think there are probably toddlers who are more savvy than me in some areas. I definitely don't get much past the ten year olds in that area. On the other hand, in my special interests, I easily match graduate students despite no formal training, or if the special interest isn't academic, match the top percent or so. You can't put age equivalents on those things because most adults don't manage them.

I'm 26 years old, and by your schedule I should be functioning at the age of about 17. I'm way below that in some areas, way above it in other areas, just about on schedule with the driving. Some places I'm actually at the same level as most people my age--I can deal with paperwork about as well as most 26 year olds, for example.

So. bottom line, I think it's silly to assign a single age-equivalent to an autistic person. There's very few (perhaps none) that actually have most or all skills at any single age-equivalent at all, either delayed or advanced. That's just the nature of autism.

Emotionally and socially I am younger than my age, I think 2/3 sounds about right. I still call my parents "mummy and daddy" and I'm not planning on changing any time soon. My organisation skills are next to none and I've always had peolple reminding me to do things so I'm nervous about living on my own when I'm older because of that. My emotional control is that of a kid, any strong negative emotion can bring on a tantrum. I still like dressing up dolls when no one is looking.

Silver, I wish I had the social savvy of a 30 year old. So, no, it's not true for me.

No, and this is why I think they should leave it to us to explain all this to them, rather than them trying to 'decipher it'.

To quote Bob Dylan's classic song The Times They Are A-Changin "...and don't criticize what ya can't understand.."

Sort of. I guess if you mix everything together, i function about like a 14 year old(except that i have a driver's license and a part-time job, lol). I don't think my social functioning is as good as most 14 year olds.. and intellectually i'd say i'm over my age. But after all of that stuff is mixeed together, i think 14 is pretty close to how i feel developmentally. I sure don't feel like i'm really 21 o_O Even before i knew i had AS, i had said a bunch of times that i felt like a big chunk of my development got stalled somewhere and everyone else my age was just getting farther ahead of me.

I suspect the experts who came up with this didn't think of checking the ToM of a 50 year old and see if it's as good as that of a 30+ year old NT. They probably just checked children and extrapolated, didn't occur to them that the gap becomes wider and wider with the decades. I'm astounded at how stupid the so-called experts can be. Anyone can make a "discovery" and publish a book/article with that kind of limited and shallow research.

It's a 'spectrum' and therefore different for nearly everyone.

Trivia Tangent - OP Silver Meteor - that name is also used for a passenger train running New York to Florida since 1939 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Meteor

No. I function way above that level in some areas (like academics, political disucssions, etc.) and way below that levle in other areas.

Not necessarily. It depends on a lot of things, like the presence of co-morbid disorders and how someone was raised.

For example, both an NT and a person with AS would have inferior organization and household skills if their parents never taught them those skills, or never expected them to do it.

The only area in which I'm behind is organization/household skills, because my parents only expected me to perform household tasks when I was getting paid for it.

Socially...it depends on what you consider to be "behind". If "behind" means "doesn't have dozens of close friends", then you could say that I'm behind. If "behind" means "Doesn't have any friends, because of complete social cluelessness", then I'm in the range of normality. I'm just fine with my five close friends, one boyfriend, and many 'friendly' acquaintances.

Many youth with AS might come off as immature because their parents treat them as if their much younger than they really are. My parents have never outright told me that I'm immature, and in comparison to what many people my own age are like, everyone has told me that I'm doing the right thing financially, educationally, and occupationally. So far, no one else has referred to me as "immature".

TheDoctor, even at 15, if I'd had the ToM and the empathy (aka social intuition) of a 10 year old, I would've been a lot better off. The theory maybe holds for kids up to 12 years old, no more, which is in keeping with the rest of the attitude to focus only on Aspies till that age.

We don't develop the same neurological intuition as NTs only later. Sounds like these people were trying to make us look as if our problem was being ret*d (i.e. as per the literal definition: delayed development). We're not ret*d/delayed, we're different.

I find the claim biased and incorrect in every way.