Could I have classic autism?

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Could I have autistic disorder in the DSM IV?

I was born two months early and very sick (really low birth weight). I am female, was developmentally delayed (coordination and speech) still by 2. I walked late. With early intervention (speech, physical, and occupational therapies) I had my first words by age 2 (I had a total vocabulary of 10 words, no two word sentences) I could not use those words to ask for something. I was verbal, but could not talk in sentences until age 3 or 4. In my records it said I would try to imitate a few sounds when prompted, would rather use facial expressions and gestures over speech.

I had pretend play when prompted (when evaluated at 26 months), though at home I was content to "play" doing some repetitive activity alone for hours (like stacking blocks).

Once age 2 I read I was touch hypersensitive, visually distracted. My intervention accidentally ended and was not continued. It should have been continued.

As for playing or talking to other kids, I ignored them completely until I was older. In prekindergarten I once came home with scratches on my face (from other kids, even the teacher did not know who scratched me, so my mom changed my school). As a child I was hyposensitive to pain and temperature. I was often under the couch cushions for deep pressure.

Once I started school (in first grade), I learned slower than other kids. It was difficult for me to finish my work throughout most of my school years. In the 1990's, no teachers noticed my slow learning and lack of friends to put me in special/resource classes.

As an adult I lack communication skills (definitely social skills) in most situations (outside of home) and I am diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. I fit the autism criteria by disability benefits, and am disabled. I have daily support and have occupational therapy. I process verbal things slowly (when learning something unfamiliar) and am unable to go somewhere in public by myself, for now.

If you had speech delays then I beleave yes you could have been Diagnosed with it, your school issues don't appear much different then meny with aspergers with learning disabilites.

Seeing as though your signature states as much, yes. ASD = Autism Spectrum Disorder of which the most well known is autism. And according to the new DSM it's all autism now anyway.

Maybe...I couldn't say whether anybody is or not. Here's a link to somebody's explanation of the DSM-IV criteria for Autistic Disorder (it has examples) in case that might help you take a guess about it?

http://www.bbbautism.com/diagnostics_psychobabble.htm

Yeah, you're probably one of the many Aspies who are technically auties. I'm in that group myself--no speech delay, but I couldn't manage conversations, and my speech was decidedly odd, a little bit echolalic and a little bit just formal and pedantic and pre-recorded.

There's just not so much difference between AS-type autism and classic autism. In adulthood, they might as well be identical. My official diagnosis right now is Asperger's, but I've had practically every other label. Nowadays I just say "autism spectrum disorder" and leave it at that.

I know AS is being considered autism as well. I was just curious about the criteria and myself. I also have learning disabilities.

Dyspraxia sometimes affects my ability to speak and do things. I use sounds and behavior over words, at times.

Looking at the criteria for autism, that is a form of speech delay.

This was actually part of the rationale for the DSM-5's removal of multiple PDD diagnoses and replacing them with a single ASD diagnosis - that many people diagnosed with AS met the autism criteria and should have been diagnosed with autism instead of AS.

I was unable to be undertood by others much (including my mom) once I started speaking in sentences, until age 7 or 8. I had speech that was very unclear and I noticably had a speech fluency problem. People diagnosed with AS can have speech problems too.

Verdandi's right. You don't have to have speech delay to be diagnosed with classic autism. See here, from the DSM autism definition:

For childhood me, this is what these criteria meant in real life:

(B) qualitative impairments in communication as manifested by at least one of the following:

1. delay in, or total lack of, the development of spoken language (not accompanied by an attempt to compensate through alternative modes of communication such as gesture or mime)

delay in speaking and no gesturing either, so lack of communication in general

2. in individuals with adequate speech, marked impairment in the ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others

words came out of mouth occasionally, but not for communication or conversation, zero conversations

3. stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language

large majority of limited words that came out of mouth were echolalia

4. lack of varied, spontaneous make-believe play or social imitative play appropriate to developmental level

zero pretend play

If you fit this profile, then you probably have classic autism with more severe communication impairments than AS. The AS communication impairments don't fit this pattern of no communication, verbal or non-verbal. I think it's the whole pattern of really really really poor communication insufficient to meet very basic needs that does distinguish AS profile from autism profile, and I think that different techniques are needed to help kids with different profiles. It's best to recognize these distinct profiles within ASD and act accordingly.

Also, classic autism doesn't automatically mean lower functioning overall compared to AS, eggspecially when you become verbal adult.

Verdandi and Callista, I guess that depends on what is meant with “odd” or with “I couldn’t manage a conversation”. Because both accompanied with formal and pedantic speech are very typical descriptors of AS-type communicative behaviors. I assume that if a person got a classic autism diagnosis with no delay in speech, that speech was probably very restricted with no communicational value like btbnnyr pointed out.

Lumi, I learned to speak later than you, but as speech took off I spoke fairly normally. In adult life my speech is linguistically completely normal, but more scripted and echoed than people could ever tell.

I also freeze at times if someone suddenly pops in front of me. I am also pretty aloof and generally I don’t notice people - even if they greet - but people who have known me for longer are usually forgiving in this matter. At work they call me “no see, no hear”, which must be a suitable name, since at home they used the exactly same phrase.

In early years my play was typically autistic and I seemed to be very content in being by myself. Later on I think my play and actions were fairly typical. I liked playing with my sister and couple younger kids in the neighborhood, but in school setting I couldn’t really initiate contact.

By the way did you know Lumi means snow in Finnish? It’s a beautiful name.