Is it possible to have Aspie traits but not lack social skil

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My cousin has always been social, as in like any other typical NT, and she is popular amoung other NT girls and she relates to other girls in her peers like what NTs are. But in other ways she seems worse than me at some things. Like every time she goes on holiday, whether it's in England or abroad, she always gets sick. And she also used to get sick when she started a new school year every September. She's 19 now, and is at college, but still gets sick at changes, as though she physically reacts to change. Also, her mum told me that I open up about my feelings and anxieties, whereas my cousin doesn't say anything about her feelings, and just acts surly and aloof all the time (although I'm guessing she's different when out with her friends). She's also a very disorganised girl. The doctor once prescribed her medication for something, and she didn't bother taking them, then complained when her pain continued. And she's the one who intentionally went up the doctors to get medication for it. Also her mum still has to think for her - even though she's nearly 20. When she was meeting her boyfriend, her mum was all like, ''you'd better wash your hair - I don't think he'll appreciate skanky hair.'' I don't think she would have bothered to wash her hair if her mum didn't remind her.

I'm not sure if she's just an awkward type of person. NTs aren't perfect. She's typical NT as in social-wise, because she's so quick at making friends. She lives about 12 miles away from where I live, but she has a big crowd of friends who come from where I live - and she got friendly with them just by spending one night here with her cousin once. And she's always been popular and had lots of friends in school. And she doesn't want to get a job because she wants to go to parties with her friends, so just expects her mum to keep her and pay out for the things she wants.

Can NTs be like this? I don't think it was the way she was brought up, because her older brother isn't like this, and my auntie is a generally good parent. Do you know any NTs who are like this? Socially normal but difficult in other aspects?

Yes you can have aspie traits and have good social skills. In fact there are people out there who have all the components of it but the only thing they lack is lack of social issues. So when I hear about someone having lot of aspie traits but are not on the spectrum, I then think they must be lacking one main thing to be on it.

Other things exist besides just being "normal" and being autistic. NT tends to have two different meanings - not autistic, and close to the average neurology. She sounds like she falls into the not autistic but with other challenges category.

I have read there are Aspies with good social skills, but I do not know if your cousin fits. The traits you mention are like two or three. I have more Aspie traits in comparison and I am NT. She can easily just be a spoiled girl.

There is more to Asperger's than social skills. So--yes, you could definitely have the non-social traits of AS.

While someone with that profile could not be diagnosed as Asperger's, they might need a diagnosis nonetheless if they are having problems due to those traits.

Possibilities--
PDD-NOS, probably the diagnosis of choice for people with language problems and special interests but not social problems.

Sensory processing disorder, which involves just the sensory aspects and some of the information-processing aspects.

ADHD, which has a lot in common with autism.

I don't know if your cousin is NT or not. She's not somebody you could diagnose with Asperger's or classic autism; if she's on the spectrum at all, she has a highly atypical case (thus the PDD-NOS). She might have ADHD or something of that sort. Are you two close? You might talk to her and explain that you see her struggling with this issue and that issue and think that she might benefit from an evaluation. Often times, for things like ADHD, it's just a matter of teaching some skills that'll help people organize themselves--especially for the less-severe cases that go unnoticed until adulthood like this.

I don't think getting sick after change is AS related. I always get sick whenever I make a big change, but the reason is that change is stress and stress reduces your resistance to infection. I think it's actually quite common.

Changes have made me literally sick in the past. I would feel sick to my stomach but I haven't had that in years now. Maybe because I learned to adapt.

My feeling about this after reading a lot and looking at my own self through the autism lens is that they don't call it a "spectrum" for nothing. A person could have any permutation possible of the various traits. My closest friend has many traits: inflexible about change, prefers solitude, very sensitive to sound, can't see herself from someone else's point of view, strong special interests, but she is very capable of being warm and nurturing toward others, can carry on a conversation and people seek her out as a friend. I am dreadful when it comes to back and forth conversation, people see me as aloof or cold often or inaccesible emotionally, I miss social cues and don't recognize people's faces a lot. But I am not so inflexible about change as my friend, can look at myself from someone else's perspective, and am less wedded to routine. But I seem to be much more disabled than her because of the social issues.

So you know she has a lot of friends. Do you know the nature of these friendships? If she goes through friends quickly and doesnt retain them then this might be an indicator of social deficits. Are most of these friends just casual/acquintance like relationships that rarely go deep? One of my former psychs has a son whos aspie and ADHD. He makes friends very quickly but he looses them quickly. Im sure there are outgoing aspies out their who developed a very well skilled outside likeable persona. But when you try to go deeper, you loose it.

Socially normal but difficult in other aspects?

By the DSM-IV Bible on 299.80 "Asperger's Disorder, a cursory review shows that "Qualitive impairment in social interaction" is not sufficiently "manifested" by the social behaviour as described, to satisfy the criteria.

The criteria to be met in DSM-V for the subsumed "Asperger's Disorder" into "Autism Spectrum Disorder" is mandatory for persistent deficits in "social communication and social interaction across contexts".

Trying to "cleave meatloaf at the joints" for social skills within "social communication and social interaction across contexts" is definitely going to result in confusion. By who, and how and why, will the distinctions be made amongst, say, very informal social skills, informal social skills, formal social skills, and very formal social skills?

In the definition of an impairment to a major life activity (here, the aspects of "relevant" social skills), I was at the opposite end of a Catch-22, as my excercising very informal social skills was what was noticeably impaired, not noticeable impairments to formal and very formal social skills. An official judicial ruling against my claim of being a protected person because of regarded impairments (I had elsewhere already met "Appendix One" requirements to be held "diasabled" by epilepsy), which by my disputes were noticeable in both very informal and somewhat informal social situations (and used against me), was made, and upheld by inaction of the U. S. Supreme Court, finding my alledged social impairments were not satisfactory in meeting any definition of any actual, or regarded, disorder. Strangely, the U.S. Appellate Tribunal took my oral argument presentation to them as evidence that my social skills were very good and that my social skills could not have been taken as displaying any disorder, while the defendant argued that my social skills in a job interview displayed "timidity" and "lack of motivation" disqualified me for a job that prohibited very informal social interactions involving the workplace (a form of a law enforcement position with commercial banks). My legal arguments that informal social skills were in fact prohibited from being actualized in the workplace were blocked by my not meeting the definition of having a covered impairment (while my stance with the MSPB was stopped by the prejudicial assumption by the MSPB that anybody claiming disability was necessarily disqualified for any employment).

Inversing the reasoning, anybody who displays sufficient informal social skills to effectively function in a variety of social interactions, and only displaying upset with change in very formal social situations, could not be regarded as displaying an Asperger's Disorder or be held to be within any "Autism Spectrum Disorder" per DSM-V, but much of the DSM is Catch-22.

Calling "items of criteria" traits is another major problem (major polemics over Geschwind Syndrome "aspects" versus personality "traits" still continue in neuro-psychiatry).

Tadzio

If she is naturally very socially skilled I would say that would tend to contra-indicate AS; if she has struggled socially but intellectually learned how to socialise and has developed the skill as a result, then that could be a factor in indicating AS.

She is naturally social - she always has been. She is only 1 and a half years younger than me, so we practically grew up together, and our mums are close sisters so I obviously was close to my cousin as children. Our mums are still close now, I don't soo my cousin as much now because she does other things, but I still see her occasionally, if not I see her mum every week. But as I say, as a child I remember every time I stayed over her house, she always wanted to invite a friend round, even though I was there. She just always had to have a friend, and she used to drag friends round to mine too. Her favourite thing is socialising. I'm an extrovert Aspie myself and I like to have friends and see people, but even I do like some time to myself too, to wind down. My cousin never gets tired of being with people. She's got a lot of friends, but she has 2 really best friends whom she spends most of her time with, and she's even been on holiday with them.

Did I mention, she is a good conformer, and does remind me of a typical teenage girl. I suppose you can't just look at a couple of traits in a supposed NT and start giving them the Autistic label. She is far from Autistic, but just shows other traits outside the social area. Perhaps, like what Ilka said, she is probably just a spoiled girl. Her father and his side of the family are the type of couldn't-care-less people who would rather doss and are very absent-minded people. Perhaps she just takes after them.

Last edited by Joe90 on 09 Sep 2011, 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

she doesn't really sound like an aspie. maybe she suffers from anxiety and that's why she gets sick before a change. and many NTs are disorginized.

Yes, "NT" is also a spectrum.

If it weren't, Asperger's wouldn't be so difficult to diagnose in some cases.

She could be somewhere on the BAP and still be NT, especially since she's your cousin, as some traits can randomly pop up in different individuals all over one's family tree.

As far as having a lot of traits and having decent social skills, that's pretty much me, *most* of the time, although I really have to work at being as sociable as some NTs are with seemingly no effort, and this isn't something I can pull off for long periods of time.

Ease and fluidity in social situations doesn't come naturally to me and I'll probably always seem a little "offbeat" (how people describe me, even when I thought I was pretty normal), but I'm not as lacking as or awkward as the majority of people who would be seen as fit as for an AS diagnosis might be.

Also, a person with a lot of friends doesn't necessarily have NT social skills, as far as i'm concerned. They may still be very likable, but I see a lot of folks that I would call MORE awkward than myself, who tend to draw a lot of people in for whatever reason.

Everyone has at least one or two traits from the Autistic spectrum but still be 100 percent NT. They don't have enough traits to group together to make anything near an ASD.
Everybody on this planet forgets things at times, but that doesn't mean we've all got Dementia.
Everybody on this planet gets stomachache at times, but that doesn't mean we've all got gastritis.
Everybody on this planet trips over/knocks things/drops things at times, but that doesn't mean we've all got Dyspraxia.
Same goes with general Autistic traits.