Asperger's survey

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I am doing a survey at my school to see how many people know what Asperger's is.
Here are the results so far.

Out of 78 people, only 18 of them know what Asperger's is.
And of that 18, seven of them were either adulds or teachers.

The other 60 all had no idea what I was talking about.

Those 7 adults likely no very little about it and some of the 11 kids who said they did
were completely lieing so no I do not trust your poll data

My supervisor knows, my co workers know ( the ones that sit close to me, that is)
none of them know any more about it than what I have told them and I have to remind them every now and then that I don't 'get' something and for them to clue me in.

they really can't wrap their minds around it. Maybe only AS can understand what it is, isn't that cool??

Merle

What grade(s) were you surveying? What kind of teachers claimed to know about it? And yes, Machine1 is right. Many people that "know" will have bizarre definitions, causes and connections with it.

if you use the word autism the results would be quite different.
i am life long on the autistic spectrum and had never heard of Asperger's until mid last year

oh, and i voted "i honestly don't care"...but i do appreciate the time and effort put in to produce the test (i think the person is rdos or something like that).
it is kinda entertaining although i get bored halfway through

Even my psychiatrist is barely aware of exactly what Asperger's is.

yeah and they are equally clueless about our world as we are of theirs!
what really bugs me is some of them feel sorry for us...well, gee thanks for thinking but we really don't need the sympathy; acceptance would be nice

With all the books written on the subject, I'm surprised so many people still don't know about it. I am dismayed at people's lack of knowledge about medical issues in general. People don't read these days, and are too willing to accept any diagnosis that doctors give them, even if it doesn't fit.

Themachine1 is certainly RIGHT!

I've had to tell my own counselors what it was. The ones who had heard of it said things like "Oh there was some conference about that I was gonna go to" or something equally vague. I also work with special ed teachers and I don't think ANY of them have heard of it. I once heard a teacher refer to PDD-NOS as "some new diagnosis" as if she didn't believe it had any real merit. I'm sure she'd say the same about AS.

I'm surprised that many people know about it.

Before I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, my psychologist read out the DSM-IV criteria for it as a possible diagnosis. She said she did not know much about it herself and she would probably need a second opinion on it. I informed her that I had read up on Asperger's syndrome myself and started to recite all the information I new. Lots of the stuff I said she didn't even know herself. My mum said I was like a walking DSM-IV as I also knew lots of information on other diagnosis' too. My dad and my mum both didn't know what Asperger's syndrome was until I told them and my friend said she'd heard of the name but didn't know what it was.

Whoa. That's weird.

The grades that I am doing is mostly high school grades.
I'm sorry for wasting forum space.

Many of us can say the same...We are the real experts.
I think that is an example of irony- but correct me if I'm wrong- that as a group of people which have the gift to focus intently and passionately on one subject we will of course be the ultimate expert on our own minds, more so than any NT will ever be able to grasp, and we will be the ones to teach the medical community about us, not visa versa.
(I also only think that I've explained myself properly, but I'm never quite sure... )

When it's an issue at school, I usually say I'm autistic rather than mentioning Asperger's Syndrome, because practically no one is familiar with the latter term. The downside of this is that I'm often not believed initially, because people think autistics can barely talk (let alone get 4.0 GPA's).