Diagnosed Aspies: Did you have these traits?

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I'm checking up on which traits people diagnosed Asperger's have had, and how that affected our diagnosis.

If you're self-diagnosed, please put "not officially diagnosed"; I would like to gauge what causes the psychologist to make the diagnosis, rather than how we interpret the traits.

Actually some of the traits you listed exclude a diagnosis of AS.

I have Asperger's and it took me longer to learn to care for myself.

Yes, that's the whole point, actually. I'm trying to figure out how often psychologists diagnose AS when they should be diagnosing classic autism. I didn't want to put that in the first post because I'd rather not bias the poll

Last edited by Callista on 17 Jun 2011, 10:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I picked multiple:

* I had/have problems with starting or keeping up a conversation.
* it took me longer to learn to take care of myself than most children take.

I did I think play pretend games with other children but I found them pretty boring. I know that I didn't really play with toys in a typical way, like not pretending they represented real things.

I'm diagnosed with AS, and I picked 4 of 5:

had/have problems with starting and keeping up with a conversation
use/used unusual language, including repetition and neology and many more bizarre usages of language (I consider this a plus in creative writing and public speaking)
never ever pretend-played at any point in life
took longer to learn to take care of myself

I didn't fit the first criteria of speech delay. I think the professionals are using the speech delay to make the distinction. What they're doing might be something like this, "No speech delay => Rule out 299.00 => Consider 299.80 => Diagnose 299.80". Of course, the DSM takes the opposite approach, "Consider 299.00 => Rule out 299.00 => Consider 299.80 => Diagnose 299.80". If they followed the DSM, they might do something like this for an adult, "Consider 299.80 => Can't rule out 299.00 => Consider 299.00 => Diagnose 299.00". Or this, "Consider 299.80 => Fail 299.80 => Consider 299.00 => Diagnose 299.00". But what they're actually doing is this, "Consider 299.80 => No speech delay => Diagnose 299.80". Or maybe this, "La-di-da-di-da, which of my colleagues' sandwiches should I steal for lunch today?"

If I remember correctly, instead of crawling like most babies I would roll around instead. Also, had problems with prononcing words aka phonic dyslexia

Before being diagnosed with AS, I would have trouble starting and continuing conversations with people. I also would tend to repeat certain things that I had mentioned.

I voted none of the above, but...

I did have a stuttering probem that I corrected on my own. During my diagnosis it was pointed out to me that it's not possible to correct stuttering without help, so it probably was an AS related problem controlling my speech.

Multiple...

I'm diagnosed with Asperger's and I had/have a speech delay. <-- Speech at 3/4 years
I'm diagnosed with Asperger's and I had/have problems with starting or keeping up a conversation. <-- GPOY
I'm diagnosed with Asperger's and it took me longer to learn to take care of myself than most children take. <-- Lol Making me take a bath when I was a kid was equivalent to trying to bathe a cat. xDDD Strangely, I love baths as a adult.

Diagnosed 2x by two different doctors. (One autism specialist and the other a psychologist.) I think doctors diagnose based on the severity of the symptoms combined. Less severe would probably get AS/HFA, while more severe might be classic Autism or LFA.

I'm not diagnosed, so I'm only trying to recollect what I will say to a professional on the planned appointment.

- I had/have problems with starting or keeping up a conversation
- I use/used language in unusual ways (repetitive speech, echolalia, making up my own words, etc.)
I still have stuttering and other similar issues with speech. I liked repetitive speech when I was a child. I tend to use expressions that are hard to understand for others.
- it took me longer to learn to take care of myself than most children take
My mother still washed my hair when I was well in my teenage years. She often had to remind me to actually wash myself, not only soak (which I liked to do for long). I had mild problems with clothing properly and clothing according to the season, tying the shoe lace.
As for pretend play, I can't recall properly, I must have played, but mostly I pretended to be an animal, not really an adult with some profession, eg. a teacher.

----------------------

Could you believe that a 6 yo child would sit on the toilet and after he had finished wait silently till his parents discover him and than he would ask them to wipe his heinie? I witnessed that. This child is selective mute, speaks very little, reads without any pressure or regular teaching from age 4 and writes from age 5, always prefers to play on his own. Draws very nicely, even won a prize. Could he be autistic?

I'm diagnosed with Asperger's and I had/have a speech delay. Yes and no I was diagnosed AS but it was changed to PDD-NOS because I had a speech delay.
 
I had/have problems with starting or keeping up a conversation. Yes often but not with everyone but often.

I use/used language in unusual ways (repetitive speech, echolalia, making up my own words, etc.) yes
 
it took me longer to learn to take care of myself than most

fit more than one of the above.
 
I'm diagnosed with an ASD other than Asperger's.
 
Note: I used to love pretend play and played frequently with my nieces only for the most part. I.played by myself. But when I played with my nieces it was rigid based off my obsessions and we had to have certain roles..

I am diagnosed with Aspergers and:
1. I had/have problems with starting or keeping up a conversation.
2. I used/use language in unusual ways (repetitive speech and making up my own words).
3. It took me longer to learn to take care of myself than most.

This is really very interesting... So far, 91% of the people diagnosed with Asperger's here at WP can also be diagnosed with classic autism, which should take precedence. I thought we were going to get at least a large minority, or maybe even a majority, but I didn't predict it would be almost everybody. I see what they mean when they say "Asperger's doesn't really exist; it's just another name for autism." There's never really been any gap, diagnostically, between one group and the other, but I didn't expect this huge an overlap.

You can see my signature down there. My official diagnosis is PDD-NOS/Autistic Disorder, but my parents say I have more symptoms of Aspergers then another ASD. I also did have a speech delay which could be why I was diagnosed PDD-NOS at first. Yes, I have trouble with conversations which is why I'm quiet a lot and I think I need a little bit more help in taking care of myself then other people.

Yeah... wow, this is pretty crazy. I don't see how I could've biased this poll; I didn't explain what I was doing until a couple posts down. Of course there'll be selection bias; perhaps the sort of Aspie more likely to post on WP is also the sort of Aspie who is more likely to have symptoms that match classic autism...

But until I'm told differently, I'm going to conclude that it's quite probable (in the "deserves more research" category) that classic autism and Asperger's are not just very similar, but diagnostically identical. The AS cases that don't fit into classic autism can go into PDD-NOS with the other 60% of the spectrum... making it 61% won't make it any worse than it already is.