Can autism get lesser?

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Not sure how to phrase this question.

So, I'm considered very 'high-functioning' by professionals. The one thing that confuses me greatly is that some people who're considered less 'high functioning' have a lot less trouble, but have no ways to cope with this less trouble (and thus the trouble is extremely present in their lives). The thing is, when I compare myself today to how I was as a child until about 10/11 years, I know exactly how much issues I had because of my autism that I now know how to cope with. But the issues are still there, aren't they? Or are they not? It confuses me how none of the professionals can believe what I was like as a child, because other adults still carry on with the same issues they know no solution for.

So, I want to know whether an autistic person can get less autistic over the course of years or remains the same? Because this whole thing ain't making sense and it's annoying that I fail to figure it out!

Yes, the symptoms can come and go throughout life in varying severity.

You can start off as "bad", but improve throughout childhood where you can function reasonably well in work/school (social problems are always going to be there to some extent). In some individuals, the disorder can return to how it was when at its "worst" in early adulthood. It then improves later on in life (midlife). They don't know the reason for this.

Wing wrote of this in some text (I forget which one).

I think the basic "condition" of AS/autism is a "constant", however most people with any kind of disability learn various ways to cope with and get around things (I have a relative who's paralyzed in about half his body, and it's amazing how he handles a lot of things you'd normally think requires the use of both hands, even though he can only use one of his arms).

So whenever you see someone on the spectrum grow up to become better at handling their neurological issues, I think it's a matter of "practice makes perfect"...

Autism is a developmental delay. Some parts of the brain, and the skills associated with them, do not develop on the typical timetable. Other parts of the brain may retask to the underdeveloped skills.

I am a very well-adapted adult. I feel I've overcome the developmental delays except when it comes to social initiative. If I didn't tell you I had AS, you'd just think I was eccentric.

So yes, autism can become less of an influence in a person's day-to-day life, making the person appear less autistic.

Hi Sora,

To start with the ASD spectrum is huge, no one has it all, even in a more narrow deffinition, AS, the Dx is 6,583% and we each get 100% with no two the same.

So comparing yourself to others does not work.

Personallity and situation seem to have a lot to do with response. If you learn to tie your shoes, is not knowing how still there? Others might have been forced, and respond by having meltdowns at the mention of shoes. Why do some get stuck, and others go on? I do not know, but it is that way for NTs too.

We have trouble figuring this out, and pity the poor NTs who study us. If you do figure it out I am putting your name up for a Nobel Prize.

The second problem is being human, none are, all are part human. You are good at music, I am totally hopeless. Natural talents, personallity types, IQ, general health, place of birth, family, economic background, education, all affect outcome.

My personal thought is that much attributed to ASDs is in fact a comorbid caused by bad treatment. These things can get locked in, producing lifetime problems, or if properly dealt with, have no affect.

For all of being human, ASDs are but a small part. The people here are very human, and I often forget the reason for this site. In person I have problems that vanish when I do business over the Internet. So our condition is mostly based on other people's responses?

Even for just myself, the question of do you become less Autistic over time is hard to answer. I am 61, and only discovered AS in the last year, and think I am perhaps HFA. Because I had to work at it harder to get by in life, I got better than other humans, by using my natural talents with things mechanical, electronic, and like most of my generation, not only blended in, still quirky but accepted, needed, and many of us started our own business.

Unrecognised, untreated, I had nothing but myself to work with, and I came to terms with me.

Looking back, I did not surpress my ASD traits, I used them. I would think you are doing the same with music. Childhood socialization did not go well, but adult work and business did.

I know the curve that Danielismyname mentions. Space case child, then did well academically in school, but not socially. As a young adult in an unstructured situation, I returned to a non-verbal mode, for it worked best for me.

ASDs come out under stress, so they are always there, but not as failure, but as the best survival means I know. I become very ASD when faced with a broken machine, or a hostile situation, it is the tunnel vision that gets me through, the ability to focus on one thing well.

Young adult is old high school behavior, which after twenty five is no longer socallialy acceptable.

In the adult world, it can be a plus, our skills are valued more than our differances are attacked. We are fit for very skilled trades, and higher education. ASDs are only a problem when not accepted.

It becomes a source of adult humor. I get a call, we hate you, but will you come look at this car, four mechanics have worked on it for three days, and it still has the same problem. It usually takes me less than fifteen minutes to figure out the problem. I have not worked as a mechanic in over twenty years, but I still get calls.

Next it was computers, knowing me was very important.

As you say, issues I now know how to cope with.

Other people do not have to learn how to run themselves, it comes natural, and badly, they run on a Third Grade operating system, so they need us to fix things for them.

We are not defective, though it may seem that way, we are fully human, with some extra. If you can survive to twenty-five, the extra is good and useful. So in several waves we mature out of stages, but it is always there.

If we do well in some times, situations, me doing business on the web is cured, less so in person, but my skills are in demand. ASDs do not seem to be the problem, only the local reaction can be a problem. You have learned to cope with social problems, some never do. Some do later, when adult values rule.

Do we mature out, or do the rest mature and quit their childish ways?

How much should a childhood issue that vanishes after twenty-five be treated?

The focus has been on children, but looking at the adults here, got a Degree, got married, worked, and discovered ASD when their child was Dxed. Looking at it, yes, they had all those issues, but just went on.

The ones I worry about are the younger treated, being told they have a disabling condition for life, as I gather you were told, and it would have to be treated with pills. It seems to me the treatment is worse than the condition, and many are failing to grow up and get on with life, because of treatment.

The first rule of medicine is, "First, do no harm." Psychology is not medicine, nor is it a Science, it is the opinion of some wackos, who knowing they were wackos, got a Masters Degree.

Does a Masters in History allow me to treat people and make them Historically Correct?

There are as many views on History as on Psychology.

My view is the wackos are out to prove it is not just them, everybody is crazy.

Only Sora can run Sora's life. And she seems to be doing a good job, and asks good questions.

Yes their is such a thing as outgrowing a lot of ur autism traits, i know i was much more on the severe side growing up.

I do believe that people grow and change with time, if they are given a way to develop their potential.

There is evidence (statistical studies) to support that in some people, it does lessen. You'll have to do some digginig around on the NIMH site, or even in the records of the Social Security administration.....but you'll have to dig it out.

Good Luck,
Btdt

Here is what I read:

Also, if you look at any of the various clinical sites around concerning autism, they'll state that it frequently improves the older you get.

Thanks to you all. I'll take a look into these statistics too.
Also special thanks to Inventor, because I just realised I had asked a question that is in essence the same as one I had asked recently in a different context and couldn't answer at all.

A few weeks ago I asked why there are people who are able to get on going, no matter how bad their despair was in the past and why there, at the same time, people who cannot do this any more and find themselves before the riddle of their life they can't seem to answer. So, in essence I asked what makes a person be that one special person and why move the same things different people differently?

I wish I could answer. The one fairly real answer I received was that some are more lucky than other. But I can't agree on such mundane matters as luck - what is luck, why is one lucky while another is not? It's not a satisfying answer.

So, I realise that I asked this question concerning autism. What makes one autistic person be like this, what makes another autistic person be like that?

Many answers I received to my first question were also along the lines that a person who has a high IQ, who comes from a good background or who has learned how to solve more problems than others is more likely succeeding in the face of trouble along the way. At first I didn't agree, but the way Inventor said it I see a different side to it.

I grew up not knowing it was autism that I had. I was told I was a mute baby and not interested in following anybody, or interacting at all. However, my mom insisted on carrying me around with her everywhere, talking to me all the time. From what I've been told she showed an interesting determination to get her way and it paid off, because I began to follow her around to almost everywhere and starting to speak out of the blue just at the right time. I can even remember one episode in which I figured after minutes that I could call my mom and then struggled to get the word past my lips.

I still find it somehow ridiculous that these mere circumstances I happened to grow up in determined a lot of me today. Because that's stupid and so very unfair!

Maybe indeed there isn't just a major difference in how a non-autistic person responds and how an autistic person responds, but just maybe all people respond differently from scratch, before they make their second guesses. It's actually a thing I haven't considered before, which now makes me feel really silly.

I really suspect that the core fact of being autistic does not change, it's the way a person's brain is wired and that wiring does not get "less" or "more" as a person grows older.

However, a few different things can happen as a person grows.

One is that a person can adapt and learn more things, or also have more responsibilities and more things to handle, or have either more or less health conditions to deal with, and those things can make it look like the person has gotten "less autistic," or "more autistic", or "stayed the same".

In my case, some things seem less, some more, and some stayed the same, but the overall impression is more because of which things did which thing.

Also, there's some evidence that the kind of autism a person appears to have, has more to do with how the brain adapts to a person's specializations as they get older. So if a person specializes in things that look "less autistic" they might look less autistic, and if a person specializes in other things they might look the same or more autistic.

But I think the person who described getting used to a physical disability is the most accurate, the actual fact of autism (the brain wiring) does not become greater or lesser.

It should get better over time if you are learning how to work on your weaknesses. I think ABA therapy helps alot with some kids so they act mostly normal.

If someones symptoms actually vary and get better and worse at times and it's not due to stress or another explanation, then they may have a chronic infection causing their symptoms. There are viruses, fungal, and bacterial infections that cause autistic symptoms. For example, one of the symptoms of Lyme disease is "autism-like syndrome." There's even a website (Lyme Induced Autism) created by parents with Lyme disease who give birth to children with Lyme and autism. If your mother has symptoms of Lyme (which are similar to chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and some autoimmune disorders) and you have autism or AS, then Lyme disease may be the cause. Some autistics have Candida or an unknown fungal infection and get better with the antifungals Nystatin and Diflucan. If you have a nail fungus, you might as well ask for Diflucan since it can at least cure the nail fungus plus it may help with autism symptoms also. One study showed over 30% test positive for the HHV-6 virus and 55% test positive for Mycoplasma fermentans. Some causes of autism symptoms also cause IBS and can be treated with probiotics (which can cure IBS plus help autism) so if you have digestive problems you should probably try probiotics.

Just as a note: I've had a lot of fungal infections, since I've had to take a heavy-duty drug to treat asthma that also lowers the immune system.

You have to have a pretty lowered immune system to have the sort of systemic fungal infection that could really affect you in any major way like that. And if you have the systemic kind, that can even be fatal if not treated.

From Wikipedia:

I was even somewhat immunocompromised (long-term prednisone use combined with antibiotics), and did not get candidemia, just more local infections than usual (although the esophageal candida can be a warning sign that it might go systemic, but again I was immunocompromised by drugs I had to take for other things, this is not an everyday thing).

Having nail fungus won't make you more or less autistic. I've had nail fungus, crotch fungus, skin-fold fungus, mouth fungus, and esophageal fungus, and none of those are systemic, they're localized infections. Treating them did not make me any less autistic, or even seem any less autistic, and having them did not make me any more autistic.

I did, while I had no candida infections at all, get diagnosed with systemic candida by a quack. Quacks love diagnosing it, because everyone has candida in their bodies. Then they can point to it and say "See? Systemic candida." But the problem is, I didn't have it. When I did have a strong physiological reaction to the antifungal drugs (from common side-effects), he said that was a sign I was getting better. (Hint: When I really did have to take anti-fungals for real infections, I did not feel worse on them than I normally do.) He was full of crap. There are a lot of doctors out there who are out to make a buck and will put you on restrictive diets as well as anti-fungals for non-existent infections. That is a very dangerous thing to do to people. Unfortunately not everyone knows that about them.

Are a [kanner] autie and not aspie aren't-Sora? sure am remember this from reading posts a long while back.

The professionals should know that functioning level and strength of autism can change over the years either way,though Autism is not static-but some professionals ignorance is,many of them are supposed to be trained autism pros who are the last people would expect to come out with outdated or stupidly wrong autism stuff.
It's common for pros to use 'high functioning' to mean something as basic and non meaningful as being able to read,write and speak [if am remember correctly...probably not but it's something like that] so there are a lot of auties [and most,if not all aspies] who would be 'high functioning' under that definition.
What they don't realise is it doesn't account for a lot of things including 'splinter skills'-where some specific skills can be medium/lower functioning,it doesn't account for the autistics who would be lower functioning if it wasn't for adaptions,medication etc that they use,it doesn't account for environmental,living...arrangments that when changed cause the autistic to become lower functioning,just because they are high functioning at that moment-doesn't mean they have static functioning.
Strength of Autism should not be judged on functioning level either,'obvious autistics' can become higher functioners.

Am say,don't take what pros have said to self too seriously because if they really knew self,they wouldn't ignorantly denie own struggles.
It sounds like they haven't spent enough time researching about self either.
ignore them.

That's what medical schools teach but it's not true. I took antibiotics earlier this year and they made me more autistic. They also made my tongue turn white which is a sign of a fungal infection even though most conventional doctors don't know it. I stopped the antibiotics and I stopped getting worse but didn't improve until I took anti-fungals. I experienced the typical die-off reaction alternative doctors talk about before I got better. I'm not the only one. The Autism Research Institute collects information from parents who give their kids different treatements and rates them. Antibiotics (which make fungal infections worse) and the worst treatment out of the over 100 treatments evaluated. Anti-fungals (Nystatin and Diflucan are the ones that treat Candida, other ones may not work) are rated the best drug treatment for autism. This is based on 2,039 responses to antibiotics and 1,734 responses to anti-fungals. Based on scientific research, most autistics have substantial immune suppression and/or dysfunction due to mercury and/or other unknown causes.

Link to Treatment Ratings for Autism


True. However, fungal infections (including nail fungus) usually occur when the immune system is suppressed. A nail fungus is a sign of a suppressed immune system and weakened immunity means other hidden fungal infections may be present. I've had two nail fungus infections and both times I became more autistic after getting them and anti-fungals helped both times. I realize this isn't always the case. I'm just saying if someones got a nail fungus they ask for Diflucan since there's a possibility it may help with autism symptoms as well.



It's difficult to diagnose because there's no standard test for it. It's diagnosed based on symptoms and there are always other causes that can't be tested for either. There's a case report on Medline of someone who was tested 10 times with the standard test (blood culture) for systemic candidiasis and was negative every time. She died and the autopsy showed her death was due to a Candida albicans infection. If she went to one of the "quacks" she would still be alive. Systemic candidiasis isn't a problem in autism. The problem is either hidden intestinal Candida infection or an unknown fungal infection. I think intestinal Candida inhibits the enzyme that digests wheat and milk proteins so that probably one reason why the gluten-free/casein-free diet helps about 65% with autism and AS. The Great Plains Lab has a special organic acids test for intestinal Candida and other infections that a study has shown to be effective.
Lab Tests Recommended for Autism and AS

In case anyone is wondering, I'm not saying AS is a problem that should be fixed. I believe everyone is different due to normal genetic variations. I believe everyone should be accepted and allowed to be themselves. However, there are known causes of autistic symptoms that can be treated. For example, about 50% with autism (not sure about AS) suffer from digestive problems so there seems to be a link. Probiotics (which help treat Candida) have been shown to cure these problems and they also help autistic symptoms so there's no reason not to try it.

I'm actually pretty riled up over something kind of like this.

You see, I was diagnosed as a child, and when I matured enough, I realized some things. I began to work on getting better. I now have a good amount of self-control, and I don't tell people I have AS, and they don't figure it out. I've gotten more able, more capable, and I don't have to act and pretemd to fit in with people. I'm "a little eccentric" at times, but generally, I'm just your "normal" guy. That's in real life. On the internet, I got involved in some wild debates, and went from supporting ND, to being a neutral kind of guy. I could draw things out forever, but I'll get to the point.

I was in a heated discussion, and someone accused me of not being an Aspie. Having lived with it for over half my life, I thought this was pretty insulting. The guy seriously thought I wasn't an Aspie, and started calling me all kinds of things, liar, fake, fraud. It's nuts! Well, to me it is. After all this work I put in to make myself better able to cope socially, I apparently did too well? Kind of complimentary and insulting at the same time.

I wonder, if I've actually reached the point where I'm indiscernible from any other person, what does this mean in terms of my diagnosis?