AS/Autism considered a myth in other countries?

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Where does this usually take place? For those living in those countries, what has the experience been like for you?

I guess I never heard of such a thing. I thought most people already understood Autism, but I guess I never thought about the underdeveloped countries that might think any signs of Autism were a result of demonic possession. They might think other disorders are demonic possession too or think they can cure anything by saying a chant or praying to gods they believe in. I think it would be terrifying to live in places like that, especially for people who could be Autistic, thinking they are possessed, when in reality, demons have nothing to do with it.

my husband claimed Asperger's doesn't exist in his country... that it's purely an American thing... that people over there smack their kids around and tell them to socialize... but then I asked him if there were people there who were extremely reserved like me, and he said that he knew a guy who was "socially lazy" who only spoke once in a while but very well...
then, I suggested that, for that guy, communication might be a big struggle for him, which is why he only does it once in a while--because he has to act...
that shut him up

Where is his country?

I know of countries where Asperger's is largely unheard of, and if you mention Autism, people say "but you speak, so you can't be autistic".

Sadly even in europe like France or even a lot of psychiatrists in Germany are still thinking that way.
I'm from Germany and my psychiatrist asked me in the beginning: "What is HFA?"

Whilst many people in the UK do believe it exists, many think it's over diagnosed. Then there's all this "we never had Autism in my day".

I was asked on Tuesday what Autism is?

Just because it wasn't diagnosed (much) in the past, doesn't mean it didn't exist. But people just don't seem to understand that.
In Germany Autism is mostly missdiagnosed as Borderline or Schizophrenie. Borderline is totally overdiagnosed.

Raziel, in WP I see everyone talking so freely about Autism and AS with their therapists, parents, educators, even employers, that I thought that in the 1st. world countries it was surprisingly widespread knowledge now... I wonder why it's so different in the Anglo-Saxon countries from the rest of the world. Maybe because a lot of research isn't translated into their language...

I have the feeling it's not just that.
My psychiatrist can read english, but then she is just used to diagnose in a sertain way, because "everyone" is doing it. In Germany there are some view psychiatrists who started diagnosing autism a view years ago, so in some areas it is getting more and more "normal". My psychiatry in my city stared with an autismambulance last year and they are soooo terrible clichée and just diagnose something else in a lot of cases, who have been diagnosed as autistic from the view German expert that exist.


So far I know autism is common as a diagnoses in the anglo-saxon countries and the scandinavian countries.

I don't know if my psychiatrist will recognice autism at least in some cases after meeting me. I'm her first patient diagnosed with autism. At least I hope so.

So that confirms the saying that no one is a prophet in their own land...if few have heard of or heed the findings of Dr. Asperger... Just like Jesus is practically unheard of in his country of origin.

Perhaps in some cases what happens is that Asperger-like behaviour is more close to the socially accepted behavior in that country, meaning that a behaviour that in country A is "Asperger Syndrome" in country B is simply "his personality"?

About the "Aspergers is sometimes misdiagnosed as [X]" thing.

If persons with a particular set of behaviors are diagnosed by some doctors as having Asperger's Syndrome and other persons with a similar set of behaviors are diagnosed by other doctors as having "X", there is any objective way of saying that AS is being misdiagnosed as "X" or if is the opposite?

After all, AS and "X" are simply labels that we created to facilitate our comprehension of things, then, saying that someone has AS instead of "X" or "X" instead of AS (specially in cases where someone have both the symptoms of AS and of "X") can be, indeed, simply a question of "fashion" or of "diagnositic labels most popular in that time and place".

In other words, perhaps it is impossible to determine if AS is underdiagnosed outside of the anglo-saxon world or if it is overdiagnosed in the anglo-saxon world.

I don't quite see it that way.
You aren't born with schizophrenia for example and there is no language delay and other symptoms because of schizophrenia in childhood. This is just an example, but I believe that some diagnoses are simmilar and it might be difficult to tell which one is more correct and others just may look simmilar, but are something complitly different.

All valid questions, I really don't know the answer... All I know is, if I didn't happen to have NLD, which caused me to have an unusual talent and love for learning foreign languages (overcompensation of the verbal for the blindness to the non-verbal), I wouldn't surf the web in English, and I wonder if and when I would've discovered that my problem is AS and not "laziness and selfishness" as I was brought up to believe. When I was 5 years old, I drove my parents crazy asking for English lessons, because I already knew then that not knowing English you had a 20-year gap in new discoveries with the US. In the end my parents agreed, and that saved my life, because with my NLD, I'm not good at anything to support myself except languages, and knowing English was my guardian angel all my life. I'd have died in an institution long ago otherwise.

Two times doctors thought for a short period of time that I have something different, until they accepet that I'm really autistic. They both didn't tell me in the beginning, but every single time I noticed that their "concept" about me is wrong.

I had a speach delay as a child, I have sensory issues, I have problems to understand social situations correctly, I have routines and a lot more. Considering all this, this just can't be some strange coincidence of a "made up" diagnoses. Autism existis and is very real.