Aspies who appear to have classic Autism

Post Reply New Topic

Has anyone ever observed this, my friend at my Aspergers social group said he has met people who have very severe classic Autism who have been diagnosed with AS, he has also met people who have Autism not AS who appear like they have mild AS. I have not met as many aspies and auties as he has, most aspies I've met, while they appear noticeably different and seem like they may have some issues do not appear to me to be obviously autistic. So I'm just wondering, has anyone ever met anyone who appeared to be obviously Autistic or even severely handicapped, who has a diagnosis of Aspergers?

iirc the biggest diagnostic difference between aspergers and autism was learning language. If they speak well they're likely to be diagnosed with aspergers even if they need a lot of support. That's probably why they took it out of the DSM.

(someone please correct me if I'm wrong)

You are right Soyer. That is why Asperger's was removed from the DSM V in 2013. In Asperger's children did not have a delay in learning language and they felt that that was not enough of a difference for Asperger's to merit it's own diagnosis. So in the US it is all Autism Spectrum Disorder now and it just varies in degrees.

But I think that people can really vary by how they present. I know that some people present severely and do so always and consistently. I also know for myself though, there are times when I get much more Autistic than other times. Even within the span of a single day things could happen where one person might see me and think I am NT. Then later another person might see me and just think I am a little different. And in an other part of the day someone else might see me and think, she is classically Autistic. So how I present, even as someone on the Aspie sided of the Spectrum, can radically change at any moment depending on the circumstances. I think that a lot of so called "high functioning" Spectrumites can understand this very well. We have plenty of times when we are not "high functioning" at all.

Yeah well anybody who knows autism knows that its very diverse. Iv'e known a ton of mofos with autism A LOT. It's all very diverse.

Although iv'e yet to meet one who's good with the ladies. When it comes to the ladies, most of us are pretty bad. Sorry

What's a mofo?

Oh, got it! Thanks for telling me. I now know that is a word I should not add to my vocabulary.

It's the "hip hop" version of a common incestuous curse.

It's like how n***a means the n word or how fudge means the f word so people say those words to mean those bad words.

I was even saying BS in Spanish in Spanish class and our teacher put a stop to it. He said he didn't want any bad language in his class in English or Spanish or in any language, I think he was saying that mainly for me but was saying it to the whole class. I remember getting in trouble at school for saying the letter F when I was eight. Hey I didn't say f*uck, I said F. Then I learned the letter F was a bad word when you mean the f word. No one ever told me that, I was only told the word f*uck was bad. Very literal.

Well, with regards to the lack of language delay criterion, technically echolalia could meet the criteria. (Words by age 2, sentences by age 3 - doesn't require the language be normal in form or meaningful.) So a person who speaks only in echolalia could qualify for Aspergers if they started echolalia before they turned 2.

it seems to me that an awful lot of the DSM and psychiatry as a whole has always been made up of a lot of very vague, unsubstantiated, unscientific diagnostic characteristics (e.g., refrigerator moms?). Money and politics clearly factor in here, even though it's really pretty short-sighted to not think about how a lot of people with untreated ASD might wind up being a burden on the welfare state or prison system instead of being at least partly employed.

Hard science like genetics and functional MRIs are starting to find physical, verifiable tests for autism, instead of questionnaires with widely varying results.

Also, personality traits can change with age, adapt to changing environments, and learn new ways of perceiving and acting. The shy, quirky nerd can take acting classes for confidence, share her love of bugs only with other enthusiasts, and learn more sociable ways to act. She can also be perfectly happy the way she is, magnifying glass and bug net in hand. What we autistics have is a whole order of magnitude different: we don't know how to adapt, we're unaware of the social rules we're meant to learn, and the world is an obstacle course of painful sensory stimuli and social ostracism. Even the oddest nerd can find a community; to be autistic is to spend your life searching for a home. Even when we learn to adapt, it is a cognitive act, not an instinctive one: learning scripts, memorizing facial expressions, studying books on psychology and etiquette.