Is hating change/needing routine necessary for AS dx?

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If you've seen some of my other posts you might know I've been wondering if I'm AS for quite some time now and am getting evaluated next Monday. I'm a bit nervous...anyway, I have a bunch of the criteria - (hand flap when overloaded, instinctively see patterns but not human emotion, completely unable to read facial expressions or body language, a set of constructed rules to deal with social situations, can't empathize unless explicitly told what emotion I should be feeling, people touching me freaks me out to the point of violence, never sharing things with my parents even as a toddler, fascination with spinny parts of toys, etc etc) - but I don't hate change. At all, actually, it doesn't bother me one bit. If someone gets their hair cut I have to re-memorize their face and that can be problematic if I don't see them very often, but it doesn't upset me at all. If we decide we want to go to the library instead of the park, or this restaurant instead of that one, even major things like my brother completely demolishing my room and making it his own when I left for college have absolutely no emotional effect on me at all.

Is it possible to still have AS without this inability to process change, or is it a necessary criteria?

So, if I asked you out to lunch with ten minutes to get ready you'll be ok?
If you have sensory issues and or anxiety let's pretend just for now you don't.

If you'd be fine then well that's lucky.

I'm sure you can have AS and still like change. It's been a big part of autism for me but we've all got different symptoms in different severities. I mean I don't really want friends but others do.

Often when people talk about needing routine they talk about aspects that don't affect me.

However, when it comes down to that trait I still have it, its just that for me the focus isn't on the routine, its about the predictability. Personally, I need to be able to know and be able to predict what's going on. It's not about things being the same time after time (which is how its talked about), its about not having been told it'll be one thing this time and having it be a different thing.

You might vary from what's standard to say like that and yet still qualify with the base thing that's being talked about.

Oh yeah I just need a plan. It doesn't have to be repetitive. Repetitive can be very calming though.

It's only one of the things in the criteria you need to meet but if you meet something else in that part of the criteria but not that part, you can still get diagnosed.


I am find with change but sudden change upsets me or drives me crazy. I get anxiety and get irritable and then I am a b***h. I don't mean to be. My husband says I am flexible and then he says I am not and that I don't like change and when I point it out to him that I do he goes "Only when it's something you like" "Only when it's your idea." Plus when there is too much change in my day, I get irritable and have anxiety. I prefer to break it up and do little at a time. I suppose this is my AS but I have no idea what NTs go through. I know they don't like change either but they deal with it better than we do and I feel I deal with it well too. I just deal with it.

Hm. I never thought of it like that. If we are all going out to eat and we say we are going to Chinese then switch to Mexican it doesn't bother me, and that's how I've seen it portrayed. Or my daily routine doesn't matter at all. But I plan things to fault. How many gallons of gas we are expected to use on a trip and if we have to make this detour to stop at Wal-Mart how many more gallons that will take, and how much that will cost depending on what part of the country we are in. I'm very meticulous about planning things.

But spontaneity doesn't really bother me. If someone says "Hey you have to leave in 10 minutes" and that's the first I've heard of it, it would be stressful but I don't feel any more stressful than it would be to anyone who was suddenly forced to get ready to leave the house in only 10 minutes.

I guess I'll just have to talk to my doctor. I'm just nervous and right now am trying to plan my visit to the minute and I can't because I don't know what's going to happen and that's just making me more nervous so I'm trying to plan for every contingency of what I might be asked.

Thanks for helping.

the DSM doesn't say anything about a dislike for change in general. it says that there might be some routines that a person doesn't like to have fooled with.

i don't have that characteristic.

Not necessarily, if you look in the dsm, you only need 1 symptom out of category 2, that can be having strong narrow interests or stimming as well. I still dont agree with the being fixated with parts of objects. I am aspie and I'm fine with change tho back when I was diagnosed, that was a major symptom for me. Do you have a history of disliking change as a kids?

Although it's not required for the diagnosis, I believe many of us on the autism spectrum like routines. I do. Last week I learned about a change to my work schedule for this past Monday, and it nearly ruined my weekend thinking about it.

I know a person with ADHD, and when he was first at school he used to act less hyperactive and more calmer when the teachers were made aware of giving him a more secure routine in school.