Can you become asperger or autistic while growing up ?

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I wonder if someone could be born "neurotypical" and become more and more asperger or autistic with time ? I know that many people have been diagnosed early but some are diagnosed pretty late in their life...

My own experience makes me wonder...

I haven't been diagnoses with everything. In fact, my mother took my brother and I to the psychologist when we were something like 5 and they said that "we only had to grow up", they've been told that I was probably dyspraxic or dyslexic though...

So here's my story, and the reason why I sometimes wonder whether one can become Asperger when they grow up.

I'm a premature child, I was born on December the 7th (year 1989) instead of February the 21th (year 1990 of course). I've been separated from my mother at birth and almost died several times but after spending two months at the hospital, I was safe and my father remembers that I was pretty strong for my age (or that's what he says). Three months, I've been a lonely child for three months, at home with my parents and their cat but I have a twin brother. He was weaker than me but made it too and came home a month after me. I've never been alone, I always had my brother.
I went to school at two and half as years begin in September but it seems that I had a friend or two, I actually don't remember them, they must not have been that important. I know that I loved to play in the sandbox and you don't need many classmate to play there. I only remember two boy, one of them was the son of my mother's friend and that's why we met. (And he's actually the only boy I kissed in my poor life of celibacy.) I don't remember having real problems with people, I was part of a group when I was little, we were different but I was not alone. Several groups existed in my school, one of them was "the girly girl", I never went with them though they were pretty "popular" because they played girl games in the playground, games like jumping rope and I never succeed in using a jumping rope. I played "pretend" (generally to be an animal), I read books and talk about it with my friends (especially my best friend of that time), and tag. I was quite happy and I think I was normal.
But then I moved in another town, pretty far away from my native town, and I became a "nerd". I was not really a "nerd" in elementary school because kids didn't used these words but I was alone and the only friends I had were younger than me because I could teach them things and protect them in a way. I didn't feel rejected by them. I was nine and I changed. I used to sing, to spend some time on my own, to play in my own world before but in this new town I used it as a shelter, a shield. I started singing more (then stopped by the age of 12 and now I can't sing anymore without breaking a window or two), in my own world. In the playground, when I wasn't trying to make other accept myself, I sang silly songs I created and made some weird movments. I was in my own world. People usually says that a child who feel lonely will have an imaginary friend. That's not true in my case, I had many imaginary friends when I was part of a group and stopped having them when I was alone. My brother was there and I sometimes got the chance to go with his friends but I wasn't accepted.
High School, or collège as it is called here, was pretty tough to me. I had no friends at first and only met a girl, a marginal girl with no friends, at the end of my first year. We became "friends" later. The next year, I spent my time with two boys, they were older than me and friends of my brother too. I started having some "friends", like the girl I'd met the year before, but they were all people who were kind of geeks or nerds. For my third year, things became differents. My friends had friends and we created our group, I liked some people more than the other but enjoyed their company. As I am honest, I didn't know they were not and they let me down at the end of the year. We spend the last year of collège fighting against each other, I stayed with my depressive friend.
Then, I went to lycée, the first year was awkward, we were still fighting against each other though many of us left the town but I started connecting with my best friend who is a "above average IQ" (she had 128 when she was little and her psychologist told her she is gifted.) and has difficulties socializing with people too (but is more comfortable with society).
By the end of lycée, I told her I had only one friend, she was the friend.
Now, I'm in classe prépa (read the CPGE article on wikipedia if you really want to know what is it) and my first year wasn't easy. I thought I would be able to have more friends as I started my life again and realized that you cannot start your life again... I was the same girl, people seem to be more intelligent here and have less prejudices, they don't hate me but I can't talk to them that much. I enjoyed talking with two girls last year, they stayed classmate and not real friends. This year, my second and last year before I go to the university, I met a girl and I'm starting to think that she may be friend, I feel comfortable with her and she opened her heart to me and trusts me. I don't know if people trust others that easily so I can't tell if she feels that I am a friend too and I'm so afraid of losing her because I don't connect to people easily but once I love them, I really does. So I only have two friends and I'm 19. They are generally different from other people or have a "problem" (depression, etc).

My social life isn't good but it's better than it has been before. I have been beatend and abused psychologically at school for eight years and never understood why. People says that I'm weird. I've been called a nerd several times, I'm now proud of this. I've always been a nerd, I mean, when I was at elementary school, I had some special interests and taught that to everyone. I work by phases or cycles of interests and it's so much easier for me to learn something I'm interested in than something boring. Three subjects remain my favorite ones : genetic (though I choose to learn english litterature), foreign alphabets and linguistic, philosophy (question about language, truth and psychology since I'm 11/12) and animals. I'm also in love with sequences in mathematics but I have some problems with maths... My interest for animals "made me" a furry and is never the same: I had a dinosaur phase, a cat phase, a tiger phase, a deer phase, a wolf and dog phase, a dolphin phase and a owl phase (since last year). I tend to learn everything on a subject and then forget almost everything because it doesn't interest me anymore.
I learnt the braille system when I was seven by reading a book about blind people, I taught it to everyone and now I only remember the letters "A, B, C". I learnt the greek alphabet at age 9, 12 and last year because I took greek class and wouldn't be able to tell you every letter now.
I have the same problem with TV Show or movies, my parents and friends find it weird to see that I can watch the same movie for months or weeks and then stop for years. I do the same with music, I generally enjoy a song for months and don't want to listen to another one.
I also have problems because I feel like I've been raised by cats. It's either that or I missed "social classes" when I was little. I'm good when it comes to teaching something to someone or when it comes to debating over some matter, I know how to talk about "serious things" but I'm pretty unable of talking with people in general. And I actually didn't realized that until my grandmother and several other people told me. They say I'm pretty smart because of that but they don't always understand me. They are more like the kind of people who talk about their holidays or their job and I don't realize that I don't do that because what I say seem pretty natural to me.
I can't look someone in the eyes, I've never been able to. My parents thought that I was just daydreaming and distracted, it's true that I am easily distracted, everyone could tell you that. I'm often daydreaming, I stopped doing that all the time now that I'm older but that's not the reason why I can't do the "eye contact" thing. And I don't understand people, once they tell you you're "staring", then they'll tell you "why don't you look into my eyes when we talk ? Don't you trust me ?". In fact, looking into someone's eyes makes me laugh and they are offended by that, it's nervous, I can't stand looking into someone's eyes, that's why I laugh. I thought I was able to look into my friends' eyes for a long time but I realized that I look more into their eyes but for short periods, it's like blinking... Or I start laughing again...
The only time I can keep this contact is when I don't want to be submissive. I look directly into their eyes because I don't feel threatened by them and can't accept what they want me to "admit". That's why I feel like I've been raised by cats, because cats don't look into the eyes of another cat if they are not preparing for a fight.
I don't like being touch either (and I hate tight clothes because I feel somewhat prisonner in them). I've never been the hugging type, I guessed it was because of my education since my parents are like that too, especially my father (who has been quite popular at school but has an IQ of 162 and this strange interest for computer and electronic things that makes him know more than my uncle who is a computer scientist). I realize too that I never hugged or hug people when I'm not willing too, I don't enjoy the hug or the touch when I'm not ready. I also tend not to touch people though it seems that some gesture are "friendly" and give comfort to people because it's so uncomfortable to be touched, sometimes it even hurt... which is strange because most of time, people touch my hair or my shoulders and obviously you shouldn't feel "pain" when someone touch your hair...
Because of that my family, either call me an autistic woman, or laugh at me saying that "I will never have a boyfriend if I can't stand a slight touch", they don't understand how it is different...
I also hate when people intrude into my personal space, hate when someone decided to clean my room or tidy my mess because I can't find anything and don't like it when people touch to my things...
I have some dyslexic traits like I don't like reading aloud (it's becoming a phobia), I mispell sometimes mispell some words, mixed my sentences, my numbers too, I can't understand written problem in mathematics, confuse the left and the right, horizontal and verticual, used to confuse perpendicual and parallel. I'm lost easily in a town... small or big... I am so afraid of driving too...
I tend to rock my body, to thump my feet on the ground or to play with my pen, either when I'm thinking or when I'm bored. I actually do that all the time (that also why my parents call me "mad" or "autistic"). I can't express my feelings and everyone tells me that my facial expression are... well, not really what they are expecting. I seem "vacant" or neutral most of the time though I do feel intense feelings sometimes. I'm always smiling but people almost never sees it... or I just smile when I shouldn't (according to them). I can't seem to find a way to express what I'm feeling in words or in facial expression, though I use body language a lot in my opinion (when I talk or think I tend to make big movement with my arms and that confuses everyone, I'm so clumsy that those who understand me may be slapped by accident). I don't even understand the facial expression of other people so easily and never know whether I'm boring them or not, this is my biggest problem because I don't feel like I'm intresting them. I have a great sense of humor for those who understand it... most of time people don't and their is some big silence, I don't know what I've done wrong... it seems that people thinks I'm serious when I use sarcasm or humor because I have a serious tone or monotonous voice, except when I'm really into something... And when it happens they think I'm a dangerous psychopath. I guess I don't use the right tone...
I'm very talkative once you know me but never seem to really comunicate, especially with my parents. To me, communicating is not really talking about feelings and stuff like that, it's more like talking about philosophy and sciences...

There are things I can't stand and it makes me feel guilty... I can't stand the sound of someone who's eating when I'm not (and I can't stand the sound of myself eating sometimes), I can't stand the sound of my own voice (generally too loud) and other people voices when they speak loudly, I can't stand the sound of someone thumping on the ground though I do that and I just hate the sound of a TV when it's on, I mean there's a whistle and it's annoying...
My parents think I might have a problem with my earing.
I understand sarcasm, sometimes... well, I understand my sarcasm that's a good point... But I don't always understand sentences and phrases as I should.

Apart from that, I've been told that I was insensitive or too sensitive. Insensitive because I don't feel anything when I see images of war or dead people on TV, I feel guilty because I don't feel anything... I can cry when I watch a movie but watching real people suffering on TV just doesn't move me at all. Too sensitive because I tend to cry when someone criticize me because I'm not "polite" or don't know how to react (I don't know how to help people feel better when someone has died for example).

I've already written a lot about me. I just feel like I'm kidding myself trying to find what is wrong with me while I must just have done everything wrong in my life.
I somehow feel like I would have been told if something was really wrong with me... And well, I obviously don't have every single signs of asperger, or when I have it it's not always that bad.
I'm 19... not 5.

Thanks for reading.

PS: I'm French, my english might not be so good.

(And would there be a reason that could explain the "late diagnosis" ?)

I don't know why you said you're English isn't good, I assumed you were from the UK/USA until you mentioned your schooling. So you write at the level of many native speakers... An obvious sign of the high intelligence common among the neurodiverse

You sound very similar to me in a lot of respects. Did you ever considering taking any of the quizzes on this site? They are NOT diagnostic tools, in that respect I think you should always see a competent professional, but they are a good indicator as to how many traits you share with other members.

I've actually been thinking about the thread header and how similar it is to my own thoughts, but I've come to the conclusion that the traits I display are no more evident, but as I've grown older I've become more aware of them.

I don't think it's possible to develop AS, you're basically born with it, but, it's possible you do have AS and it was missed during your childhood assessment when you were 5.

I have had very similar experience to you in life, when I was assessed at 2 my parents were told I was highly intelligent and that I was screaming and banging my head all the time because my mind was too fast for my body...(to be fair, Hans Asperger's work wasn't translated into English until 1982 and I was assessed in 1979)

I was also born premature and like you, I was always moving about as a kid. I was born in Scotland, moved to Germany by the time I was 3, then to South Africa a year later, and when my family moved back to Scotland, they moved house over 17 times, so disruption was constant and it made fitting in even harder for me...

At my assessment for AS, my psychologist told me that not having a stable place to grow up in can be just as detrimental for NT, let alone those of us with AS!!

You don't have to have every symptom of AS to 'have' it, I don't have every single symptom of AS, and some things are better/worse than others for me (crowds are a major no-no for example)

I want to end by telling you, you're NOT mad, or weird, or strange, and that I am sorry your parents aren't more supportive or understanding, mine were the same when I grew up, they told me I was crazy and 'not right in the head' instead of helping me find the answers I so desperately wanted...

Best wishes to you!

Now that's a wall of text there.

First of all, you cannot become autistic. Common agreement is that you show autistic traits before 3. Though the same is denied about AS today, Hans Asperger (the guy who this syndrome was named after) also said that single traits of AS are present in earliest childhood.

But even if you showed symptoms of AS all throughout your childhood, it doesn't mean they must be obvious or,e even if they have been obvious, it could be that they haven't been recognised as much more than 'peculiar habits' or 'that's just how she is'. Where I live, children generally get diagnosed with AS at 8-10 years even in the past 1-2 years. That is still pretty late considering how much attention people pay to developmental abnormalities in the past few years.

Much of what you summarised here fits AS. I think you really should look into this further.

The question is whether there's any evidence of these various traits in your childhood as well. I was diagnosed at age 18/19 and had to figure out whether I showed all the important traits from earliest childhood on my own too.

What I find to be pretty interesting is that you family makes remarks on your differences. Even if their description of you as 'autistic' isn't meant too seriously. But it points to that they notice there is something up with you that makes you different from other people.

I agree with Sora, dont think you can become autistic, but also think your autistic symptoms can worsen over the years by either period of events, sudden illnesss, environmental issues, etc... I talked to a kid once who said his social awkwardness became more apparent as he hit elementary school which started new stimming and ocd behaviors which led him to be diagnosed with aspergers, but before elementary school he said he was just alittle quirky.

I also agree with the posts above that you dont develop autism, you are born with it.
I wasnt diagnosed with Aspergers untill I was 25.
I am now 31 and was born in 1977, so way before Aspergers was recognsied, therefore I was just a difficult, hyperactive child.
My mum was regularly called to come and collect me from my infants school because they could not cope with me at times.
However that was just the way it was, my mum just accepted that I was different.
It was nice to get a diagnosis so at least i knew there was a reason for me being different after all those years!

I now manage to hold down a good job, I live on my own (with good help from my mum) and I have a small circle of friends who accept me for me. My aspergers is just one aspect of my life that i continue to deal with every day

Yeah, when I was in elementary school I had strategies in place for things like speech and daily living, and when I got to high school and moving out on my own in college, that many of these strategies that used to be sufficient for "passing" as being higher functioning for a short time fail in the long term, and so while at age 10 I was diagnosed as "(high functioning) Aspergers", at age 18 I was diagnosed "high functioning autism", and while they didn't do a daily living assessment I'm going through that now, with all the invasiveness of my space that THAT implies.

Sometimes a stressor or a transition time can spark enough of a change in skill levels that it gets called a regression, which, coupled with that autism is probably the easiest for a parent to not see or to dismiss as "just some quirks they'll grow out of" at very young ages like 2 and younger, common times for "regressive type" autism to be reported is in very early childhood around age 3, but many times autistic people experience loss of skill, especially in childhood and adolescence (and for some people middle age is a common one too, though a bit less common I believe as it is more common for traits to level off as one ages).

I didn't read a word that you said, but it's called Schizoid Personality Disorder or Simple Schizophrenia (Schizophrenia with only the autistic-like negative symptoms).

Thanks everyone for the answers. I still wonder how people can not see a disorder when you're a child while they are supposed to look after you... Well, a lot of disorders are not well-known.

Isn't schizophrenia something like having two personalities ? Or a tendencie to have fancies and hallucions (and hear other voices inside your mind ?) ?
I guess the schizoid disorder is quite interesting in this question because it seems that apsies are described as having a schizoid personality so it could be a disorder that affect many people when growing up. Though it does seem different from autism or asperger when I read the description. Maybe because sources are not very helpful, I don't know. I got the impression that a schizoid person won't like having friends or being part of a group, that they are by nature solitary. I know someone who is like that and he thinks (that I'm not like him at all) that he just doesn't need people and doesn't have to make effort to live with people. Is that the negative symptoms of autism ?

EDIT: I somehow have the impression that everyone has a disorder when I read all those descriptions !

Having 2 or more personalities or fragments of personalities is called dissociative identity disorder and not related to schizophrenia. But seriously, even medical students tend to confuse that because oft he origin of the word schizophrenia.

Generally, if a person in adolescence or adulthood starts having various symptoms that on the surface can be associated with autism -
a sudden non-verbal impairment, sudden states that seem like overloads or shutdowns, if they're suddenly withdrawing from their environment or become obsessed, if they start to have disorganised speech and changes in their sensory perception especially in their 20s it might be a type of schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is like an adolescent onset of an autism-like condition, but with positive symptoms, like hallucinations and delusions. A subset of people with Schizophrenia only develop the negative symptoms, which are similar to those found in Autism; social dysfunction and social withdrawal, repetitive behaviours, aversion to certain sensory stimuli, a lack of motivation and apathy, etcetera. This is a somewhat rare condition that manifests in the teenage years, but it's close to Asperger's in severity and symptomology, and it's also chronic once it begins (Simple Schizophrenia that is).

Schizoid PD is similar in most ways to Asperger's, but with less severe social deficits [whether the person wants to interact with others or not], and of an onset in the teenage years.

The key features that separate ASDs from these above is the early age of onset, and the lack of and appreciation of nonverbal cues (body language, eye contact, etcetera).

*nods*

http://www.donnawilliams.net/adultonset.0.html -Possible explanations for why some individuals may appear to develop autism later in life.

There is an article on regression too, but I can't find it. I'll edit this post if I do.

Yes but they call it something else. If a child starts showing it after age three and before age ten, it's called Childhood disgrentive (sp) disorder. I wonder if it's possible to start showing signs after age ten? What do they call that?

I heard brain damage can cause the symptoms too and I think it's ridiculous to diagnose the child with autism if they weren't showing any signs before age three. But I guess because autism is just a label, the doctors don't care what label they use to place on the child since we all need labels to get the help we need. That's what they are for.
There are also other conditions out there that share the same symptoms as autism/aspergers.

I was showing signs before age three but I guess my parents didn't think it was autism. They probably thought it was me, not the condition or they blamed it on my hearing loss. My mom said deaf children are also good with puzzles and are hands on and they touch everything and take things apart but I dunno what she thought of my obsessive compulsive behavior and my stimming and if she thinks deaf kids also have ritualistic behaviors. I can imagine them not playing with other kids because they can't hear so they can't communicate. But I know deaf children can learn sign language and learn to read lips so they do play with other people but kids just have to cater their needs. Learn sign language or take the time explaining to them with gestures or write on a piece of paper and have them read it or have them read your lips, if they know how.

Your post was too long to read so I didn't read it yet.

I know that a visual impairment can lead to stereotyped behaviour too. Rocking, spinning and similar behaviours. Often if the remaining senses do not get enough input or because there's just a different input needed for learning than the common use of sight of those who can see (enough).

These could be reasons why a hearing-impaired child might do it too. But I am just taking a guess here, I haven't come across anything about that yet.

i think Sora basically sums it up. YOu cannot "become autistic. " it has always been there, but just hasn't been identified.

my story is a case in point:
I am 46 and jsut got dx'ed this year. there are others in the same boat like garyww and neshamaruach on this forum - who have been dx'ed late. In my case, the traits were there, but because there was no diagnostic vocabulary to describe how i was, i remained undiagnosed until 2008 and had a very painful first half of my life. vey painful. I was described as odd, weird, a pure individual, a little professor, a super brain, and of course "eccentric." My mother - who i spoke with yesterday - about this YET AGAIN - also says the issue for me was complicated by the fact i was one of 8 and she missed many things because of having so many children. She also says that she acknowledges both she and my father are quite peculiar and out of the norm people - and all her children were too - so the way she has read and perceived her offspring has been influenced by her own "aspergers traits" as she call them, and by her assumption of what is quite normal in a family to her (but not to the broader community around her.) It was normal for my brother to stim continuously and to construct a cartoon strip that went on for years - which was all about his catholic boy's school and the crazy christian brothers who taught him. He also got bullied. he didn;t look you in the face. hi spursuits were solitary. It was normal for me to spend my time with the encyclopaedias or collecting wine labels from my dad's wine bottles or keeping an annual book and chart of rugby league tallies of our family's team, complete with newspaper articles and profiles on players. It was normal for me to hang many branches of wood from my bedroom ceiling as a kind of art/sculpture installation that overhung my bed. It was normal for me to "stim " - after all that is what my eldest brother did and that was that. And it was normal for everyone to pursue music and obscure special interests and to exhibit rather eccentric behaviours and their own repetitious routines and rules. IT was normal for some of us to have VERY little to do with other people beyond the social confines of our own family. It was normal for me to exhibit the aspie stare or look down and away when being talked to. Didn't my unlces all do that? Didn't my dad do that? IT was normal for me to hyperfocus, because everyone in my family did so to varying degrees. We were renowned as the eccentric feral family. MY family is fascinating in this respect. I have an elder brother who is a brilliant linguist and classical composer and history buff, who has never been able to grasp the career and social logistics required for him to "get ahead." All my siblings are brilliant in one way or another and only 1 out of 8 have been able to "succeed" in a career in a societal sense. My mother is similar. Brilliant, obsessed with weather forecasts, current affairs and now - Austism spectrum disorders since the dx of her grandson (my sister's son - with autism earlier this year.) MY father is a latin scholar and linguist and hymn composer and for the first half of his life acknowledges he was cripplingly shy....to the point that it impeded him. (couldn;t look people in the eye. absorbed in his own world.)

My point is, those of us who needed the benefit of a dx, did not get one, because there was no dx criteria even around back then. and we were not kanners' or even autistic , but fell more into the realm of Aspergers, which people just did not really understand until Lorna WIng re-energised asperger's initial findings.

MY personal belief regarding my family is that while not all of us have Aspergers Syndrome, some of us do. The rest seem to exhibit many, many traits - to the extent that these have interfered with life and progress. I have told my mother i think she has AS. I suspect she secretly acknowledges it to herself, but at 77 is just not really interested in pursuing a dx. she likes to acknoweldge she has many traits. she is also one of the most fascinating 77 year olds i know. i think she is great. And she is finally getting some answers concerning her own life and the lives of her children and i believe that is both intellectually stimulating for her and also bringing her some peace.


all interesting. glad to be a WP member so i hear others' stories and views...as well as being able to express my own.