Diagnostically a puzzle; your opinion?

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I'm a bit of a diagnostic conundrum. Honestly, I think I know what I have, but no one listens to me anyway (in real life, I mean)... so I want to know what YOU think I have. I know, I know, you're not doctors. I'm just curious to see if other reasonably intelligent human beings (RIHBs) agree with me (because we all know that many doctors are not, in fact, RIHBs).

I spoke at 11 months old. My mom can't remember what I said or how many words I had.

I walked at 12 months.

I toilet trained at 23 months.

I learned to read and talk at about the same time. I had hundreds of sight words in my 2nd year. Now, no one knows this, cause I didn't speak many of them, but I can remember with no shadow of a doubt.

I displayed a very clear lack of interest in my environment... I seemed to be locked within my own mind. I spoke extremely little, and stimmed a lot. I was not conversational for many years.

I have periodically lost speech for hours-days-weeks at a time my entire life. We have it on video as young as 2 or 3 years old. When I am verbal, I'm highly echolalic. I can say rather complex things if I focus long and hard enough and sort them through in my head... sometimes. Sometimes I can't find the words and get frustrated and give up. If I haven't heard it said or personally written it, I can't say it, almost ever. I'm probably best described as "partially verbal" or "functionally partially verbal."

I'm totally disinterested in other people. I tend to treat them kind of like furniture.

I simply canNOT fathom that other humans are fully satient beings. This blows my mind. If everybody's world is as rich as mine is... how can so much coexist in so little space on this planet?

My emotions are very blunted (I'd say I'm just a bit better than neutral, slightly happy, almost all the time). When I'm not slightly happy, I'm screaming/crying/punching/biting...

Oh yeah, that SIB. I have a ton of it.

K. Any questions, just shoot. What do you call me?

SuperTrouper!

You sound pretty autistic to me. While you have early/precocious speech, you should still fit the criteria because of the way you speak.

Sometimes it almost seems to me that a diagnosis of Asperger's can be a disservice, because it implies things about severity and abilities that are very likely not true.

I know your neurologist is definitely not an RIHB but I am curious what else is going on.

Edit two: Accidentally deleted text

Last edited by Verdandi on 28 Jun 2011, 8:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Verdandi, I almost just EXPLODED with... I don't know the word... reading that!

That's EXACTLY why I don't tell people I have AS. Because then they have false impressions of me, expectations that I can't live up to. But see, my neuropsych diagnosed me with severe AS, so I feel like I'm lying unless all the professionals agree on my dx (meanwhile, I have yet to have TWO agree let alone all zillion of them).

Do any of them agree with you? It does make me wonder why your neuropsych gave you that particular diagnosis. I know I've heard about others diagnosed with autism and PDD-NOS who had precocious speech (more PDD-NOS I think, but I suspect there's a bias involved as well).

Oh, as to exploding, I've only been diagnosed for a few months and I've already run into similar issues. It's really frustrating, and I am already tired of hearing "Isn't that a mild form of autism?"

I can't either. It's just overwhelming to think of all the ups and downs I've had and distances I've gone and things I've thought repeated billions of times over in the same or different form. I honestly think the world ends with what I can see. Logically there is nothing that tells me otherwise.



What is SIB?

Sorry, I can't reach a better conclusion than what you and Verdandi reached. I think PDD-NOS would be the best descriptor for you but I'm no expert.

SIB= Self-Injurous Behaviour....right, SuperTrouper?

I read in a psychology book that PDD-NOS is often the "mildest" form of autism because it is for those with a PDD who do not in either autism or aspergers. They are missing something from both diagnoses which generally makes it the mildest category. Others can disagree. This is according to their definition... if that is standard (they are experts on the subject!)

Anyway, I doubt you are PDD-NOS based on that above definition. If you lacked curiousity about the environment and were delayed in toilet training, that would exclude you from Aspergers according to the DSM.

I would say you are hyperlexic if you were reading well by the age of 2. And of course, autistic. Echolia does not count as functioning speech, so if most of your speech was made up of that, I don't think that is enough to say you were a precocious speaker at the age of 1.

If you had one of the following:

(B) qualitative impairments in communication as manifested by at least one of the following:
1. delay in, or total lack of, the development of spoken language (not accompanied by an attempt to compensate through alternative modes of communication such as gesture or mime)
2. in individuals with adequate speech, marked impairment in the ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others
3. stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language
4. lack of varied, spontaneous make-believe play or social imitative play appropriate to developmental level

then you likely have classic autism rather than aspergers. From what you said, I would guess you have classic autism...but I don't know you enough to be certain.

So if I understood your post about right you wonder what kind of autism you most likely have?

It does sound like something between AS and HFA. I am of the opinion anyone that meets criteria for classical fits in with classical though, so... I'd peg you as quite an individual with HFA.

I'm biased though, because I got a diagnosis of AS, I do fit in with Hans Asperger's original idea of AS from what I know from people who knew him, but I meet criteria for HFA and not AS. Time truly changed the meaning of Asperger's and classical. Also, in today's diagnoses, not all criteria are paid attention to in favour of personal opinions of what both AS and classical should look like.

I'm trying to be patient and wait on the new DSM when all of this will be moot. Even then, no one will agree on what "severity level" I am. Gah. Professionals.

My diagnoses have been:

Neuropsych: AS
Therapist: autism
Neuropsych eval: nonspecific PDD (didn't specify)
Research study eval (ADI-R and ADOS): ASD
Unofficial comment by researchers: MFA

My post was short and pedantic, but I see you as an individual.

I was tired and spaced out on painkillers, but I have no excuse for my behaviour. Sorry SuperTrouper.

If I could just have somebody with me to tell me what it is I should say and how to say it, then I would be okay, but it will not happen.

I do not like to tell people what they are, because I cannot see in to their minds. You seem intelligent and aware to me, SuperTrouper. I would like to know your own opinion if you have come to one, and will share it?

You sound autistic to me. I'm not sure why you are so fixated on Asperger's or autism. Ist his going to change your treatment plan?

This is illogical

If your sentience is an artifact of your brain, it follows that this sentience is confined to the volume of your brain. If everyone else's sentience was required to reside within your brain, it would be problematic. It is more likely that there is a one to one mapping between human brains and sentient humans. Thus there is plenty of space on this planet for sentience, even for those with worlds as rich as yours.

Going in the other direction, if sentience exists in some form of metaphysical space, then it is conceivable (some would say likely) that this space is infinite in scope. Again, plenty of room for multiple sentient beings.

I am fixated because I like things to be correct and I like to relay correct information. When asked what I have, I want to express the correct diagnosis and not a guess, or worse, a lie.

It's not a bit illogical. For me, thinking requires space. Physical space. I assumed that it was such for everyone else, too, but apparently it's not. I feel as if my freedom of thought is imposed upon when people are physically too close to me, and I can't think.

This is not the standard according to diagnostic practice. I have come across people diagnosed with PDD who range from very severe to somewhat mild, and the cases I have heard of where someone didn't quite fit the criteria for AS was "Seems to be AS, but had a speech delay" kind of thing. Really, whatever the intent, your diagnosis does not suggest a lot about your severity beyond AS being limited to people in the "HFA" category who had no known speech delays, and autism and PDD-NOS covering the entire spectrum.

It's also hypothetically harder to meet the criteria for PDD-NOS than it is to meet the criteria for AS.

Interesting the dichotomy here. Your first statement is an admission to an obsessive adherence to facts and correctness. Yet your second abandons fact for feelings. You feel anxiety when someone is too close but they are not inside your head directing your thoughts. I'm willing to be that you would feel less anxiety over close proximity to another person if you allowed your love of the factual to drive your perception. Factually, your thoughts don't require physical space outside of your skull. I'm not trying to be pedantic here. I'm just suggesting that your strengths regarding the factual can be leveraged to reduce agitation.

just say you are on the spectrum. that is specific and as accurate as today's psychiatry allows us to be