When do you think it is the best age to find out?

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When do you think it is the best age to find out that you are on the Autistic Spectrum?

I know there are people who find out later in life but I am more thinking about early in life. I was diagnosed when I was 10 year old and found out when I was 12 years old I remember it was November 1998.

I think when you get diagnosed at a young age I think that pre-teen age is the best time you are in adolescence you are growing up you need to know about your life and who you really are. I didn’t take the News well. I remember one day at school getting really angry and frustrated asking my key-worker teacher who obviously was trained to deal with Autism I remember shouting things like Is there a cute? If there is I am going to find one? The teacher had to sit me down and explain that there isn’t a cure. Must’ve been my first experience of what we call a Meltdown but all over the diagnosis.

For me personally I think it's better that I have always known since I was diagnosed when I was 3. Although it took until I was somewhere between 8 and 10 before I fully understood what it meant.

I was diagnosed when I was 8, and was told about it straight away. But knowing about the diagnosis made me feel more different from the other kids than before I knew about it. Also Asperger's wasn't really explained to me properly. The first thing that was said to me when I got diagnosed was "Asperger's means you don't talk to people properly", which left me confused because I was always having conversations with my peers and adults, and I made appropriate eye contact and I loved being around other children and playing games with them.

I wish I was told about it in a more dignifying way when I was 8, like "you are a normal child but you just find a few things more difficult than the other children". Then as I got to about 16, I should have been weened on to knowing more about my diagnosis, because at 16 I would have been more grown-up enough to handle it. Then if I had asked why I wasn't told more about it before, the best explanation would be "you was only a little girl at the time you was diagnosed, and so it was probably best you didn't feel like 'the kid with the label'."

But I suppose whatever age I would have been told about my diagnosis, it would have it's consequences. The best thing is to just be born a neurotypical with no mental or physical differences.

I personally think it's best to at least get a diagnosis at an early age. I was diagnosed when I was 7 - right before I started in elementary - and it helped my parents and teachers immensely in deciding what to do with me in regards to various things, even though I didn't necessarily agree with their methods at the time. But hey, I was young and stupid. In quite the literal sense.

As for finding out, that's a slightly different story. I was kind of a nightmare kid in the sense that I used my fresh AS diagnosis as an excuse for violent behavior. Where that behavior came from, I'm still not sure. Either way, in retrospect, I wouldn't have minded if I'd found out way later.

My daughter found out at 8. It was a one day all day assessment at a national autistic centre so we left there knowing and she was then told this was her information and we (mum and dad) would not tell anyone without her permission. That is over 3 months ago now. She has fully internalised the information and recently she has decided to independently tell two sets of her grandparents.

She found out she has synesthesia and sensory needs too so she will start talking about Kandinsky and then lead on from there into why she knows so much about Kandinsky and then explain to them.

It has been really amazing to see her transformation over the past 6 months from someone who knew she was different but felt threatened and misunderstood to someone who knows and understands many of the reasons for why she is different and lives confidently with that awareness. Hearing her talk and explain to others is very moving and has been such a boost for her.

I think this was a really good age to find out, it was when she was looking for answers, and the way we found out with a single one day assessment was really low on stress.

I wish that my parents would have told me when I was 10, when I was at my worst. I would have stopped talking to both them and my peers about my special interests right than and there. I wouldn't have gotten emotionally hurt for as many years as I was if I would have asked when I was 10. I also wouldn't have made a spectacle of myself in Grade 8 with my stupid dances if I was told at an early age.

I always knew I was different but had no idea about Autism, I wish I was diagnosed earlier as I could have gotten help with my education and my parents might not have bullied me.

I'd say the earlier you find out the better. I was diagnosed when I was five or six years old. It took me another ten years or so to fully understood what this was all about, though. Even so, without a diagnosis you probably won't be able to get the same kind of help you would get with a diagnosis in order to deal with or overcome certain ASD-related issues. I remember I got extra time during exams and at primary school I even had a second teacher who was paying special attention to me and a few other students of our class.

I agree with many of the above posts that earlier is better. I also agree with Joe90 that a kid shouldn't be told "you don't speak properly," it should be "your brain works a little differently than most people, but you can still do most things, maybe with a little help."

I didn't find out till I was over 60. I do believe with the right knowledge I would have gone further in a career, and possibly made a better choice in my first marriage. I also would have been a more effective parent if I had known this about myself.

Early is better, and it should be presented in a positive light.

Highly personal & debatable.

I didn't know until I was 29 years old.. and I think if I had known from the time I was very young that I might have formed self limiting beliefs as to what I could do or not do, and that would have been a very negative thing. So, I don't mind that I was nearly 30 before I knew. I think it enabled me to do & achieve a whole lot of things that I otherwise might have mistakenly believed that I could not do due to my diagnosis.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

As far as I'm concerned, one would ideally know right from birth and would learn what it means as one learned everything else about one's self.

Obviously, this is impossible - even if one's parents knew when one was a toddler, it's not like it can be explained to a toddler. But the earlier one knows, the better.

I very much mind that I didn't know until I was 36. I think if I had known as a child, I probably wouldn't be constantly going through these phases of denial.

Depends on the person and his/her knowledge, and which part of the spectrum he/she lies.

What I know so far was if it was me, is that it's likely NOT recommended around puberty. Or at it's worse/changing times, like, death of a close person or recently moving.



No one directly told me. It's just I was around with my mom talking with the diagnostician, and hearing about it.

I had suspected my difference -- so I do expected a diagnosis. Yet but doubt came to me first because I never expected to be in the spectrum.

My parents never, and I mean never, ever had talked about it to me. Let alone explain and discuss. They just know that I do know.
They let me be and I'm actually very grateful for it. They would, however, talk about it behind my back.

Save for my only SPED teacher, a brief acquaintance from a PWD seminar, and a possibly misdiagnosed young friend of mine -- no one else would ever talk about my own case to me in person.

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Like I said at the beginning I have known that I have AS since I was 12 years old so 20 years ago this year.

But what do you think of the method in how I found out.

I was put in a mainstream secondary school it was the first school to have an Special Needs classes exclusively to High Functioming Autism. It meant I was omitted from lessons to do other subjects such as Communication & Social Skills. My year was the first year to have the unit so me and the 2 others in my year were always going to be the oldest in the unit and the ones who were to set an example to the others so we had to try to be a bit more mature as well (some days were easier than others).

They did keep a little bit of information from me throughout my first year at that school which was my diagnosis. I only found out in my second year year 8 and that was because I started asking a few awkward questions as to why I was taken out of classes and why I was doing things like Social Skills I found out due to the fact I was suspicious. Also the thought they knew something about me which I didn’t made my behaviour very unstable.

Do you think what they did was right?

^^I obviously don't think what they did was right. I believe that people should have full ownership of information about them. I myself hate feeling alienated from important information about myself. It makes me anxious.

However, I can totally understand that they might have had well meaning reasons for doing it that way. Adults are terrified of labels. They are terrified of labelling their children. Of children becoming targets of bullying. They also tend to think children understand far less than they do. And are far less capable than they are.

Having heard this week how my daughter, 3-4 months after receiving her diagnosis, has sought out her grandparents and ensured she had one on one time with them and then proceeded to calmly and confidently talk about her brain and how it works (on her own without either of her parents there) has really made me feel like ownership of information as early as possible is the best way to go for internalising a positive self understanding.

.....now if only I could control grandparent's and the world's lack of understanding of autism better..... but hey ho, I figure as long as the core people get it.... it is going to be part and parcel of life for my daughter to be surrounded by people who don't get it.