How common is textbook AS

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My boyfriend is textbook AS. I told him it's not very common for aspies to be textbook because I hardly see anyone online saying they have it and I have met lot of aspies who don't meet the textbook AS. I told him he was in the minority.
I am definitly not textbook, not even close.

How many of you are textbook or aren't.

I think the textbook descriptions of AS- i.e. the strict DSM-IV diagnostic criteria- are very poorly constructed and desperately need revision (IMO). So I guess how common it is depends on exactly what you mean by "textbook."

I am a classic case- I'm your average, run-of-the-mill, typical aspie according to more detailed descriptions such as the one laid out throughout Tony Atwood's book The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome- but the DSM description doesn't fit me very well.

I'm not sure if there is such a thing. All people with AS have the so-called triad of impairments.

What is "textbook AS"?

That's what I would like to know. Can the original poster define exactly what is meant by textbook AS?

Hard to explain but it's when someone is everything what it says in textbooks like not liking fiction and they only like non fiction. I'm sure others can explain it better than me. I remember asking a long time ago what is textbook AS and I can't find the thread.

Sound like all the stereotypes I was lead to believe. Like not having a sense of humour or understanding it. Being incoherent. Being completely unable to lie.

Yeah it sounds like you mean stereotypical AS. I'm definitely not stereotypical. I suck at math, I have had romances, I'm somewhat fashion-conscious, and I don't alphabetize all my belongings.

Im close to unable to lie. I think it is required.

Perhaps the psychologists are blurring the lines and labeling anyone who is somewhat a misfit as AS.

I don't think psychologists are labelling all misfits with AS. I think that what we recognize as stereotypical AS is just one (particularly striking) response to a set of underlying conditions. That's why there are so many variations in how AS is expressed. It's the underlying causes of our strange behaviour that make us aspies, not exactly how we respond to them.

I guess most fall in a pecentange ranging from say 5 percent to 90 percent of the signs. So you are say he is one of the 90 percenters ?

Sometimes I wonder if the textbook AS cases arent somewhat psychosomatic.

Considering there are thousands of possible combinations of symptoms within the autistic range what are the odds that a single person would have the exact ones in the DSM nothing more nothing less?

i'm a textbook WPer... i identify with people i read about here

I am not textbook like. I guess that textbook people will be those who were diagnosed early in their lives, probably many of them will assume the book description, even being obviously inadequate to him.

Last edited by Neuromancer on 25 Apr 2007, 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Wellell here is the DSM IV Diagnostic Criteria here DIAGNOSTIC FEATURES

The essential features of Asperger's Disorder are:
Criterion A. Severe and sustained impairment in social interaction
Criterion B. The development of restricted, repetitive patterns of
behaviour, interests, and activities
Criterion C. The disturbance must cause clinically significant impairment
in social, occupational, or other important areas of
functioning.
Criterion D. In contrast to Autistic Disorder, there are no clinically
significant delays in language (eg: single words are used
by age 2 years, communicative phrases are used by age 3
years).
Criterion E. There are no clinically significant delays in cognitive
development or in the development of age-appropriate
self-help skills, adaptive behaviour (other than in social
interaction), and curiosity about the environment in
childhood.
Criterion F. The diagnosis is not given if the criteria are met
for any other specific Pervasive Developmental Disorder or
for Schizophrenia.


I qualify in all of them.