A question concerning high functioning AS and stims.........

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Is it possible to have Aspergers on the higher end of the spectrum if you have severe stims? My stims take up a huge portion of my day, but I am quite certain that I have Aspergers on the higher side of the spectrum because of my high cognitive ability, extreme comprehension level, my empathy for others, etc.

Does the severity of stims usually go with how severe the Aspergers/autism is? If you have lower functioning autism are you more likely to stim more than a high functioning autistic? Or does the severity of autism seem to have nothing to do with how much a person stims? These were questions that randomly popped up into my head. If there happens to have been any research into this, it could help me determine whether I have HF or LF AS.

I don't know. Maybe you are higher functioning because you let yourself stim? I sometimes wonder if those of us who have learned how to surpress it are functioning at our optimal with all the energy it takes to not do it. Also, perhaps it is in a different area of the brain. I personaly can not judge how low or high I function at any given time because there are to many factors to take into account. Sometimes I am better at communicating and some peple tell me I am intelligent but I am still working crap jobs and don't ever see myself being a CEO(insert adult job here), no matter how hard I worked at it.

As a whole, people with AS don't "stim" that much [in comparison to autism].

Really? Are you sure about this? I'm confused then. Why do I stim so much when I feel fairly high functioning? I can seriously concentrate on an object and stim for hours every day. Sometimes I get extremely bad headaches due to stimming. What percentage of people with Aspergers would you say stim? Would you say that people with Aspergers stim less and to a lesser severity level than people with autistic disorder?

Most individuals with AS don't have clinically significant "motor mannerisms", but some do (the some that do seem to have features of both autism and Asperger's).

From the friendly DSM-IV-TR:

I had a couple of psychos at Attwood's tell me the same thing.

Yet another false generalization.

And the DSM is not exactly accurate.

I read on one of your posts in the past that you assume that you have High Functioning Autism. Do you happen to stim a lot?

Why do you say this is false Beau? Do you have Aspergers and stim a lot?

Yes, and I would be considered the highest of the high-functioning.

I don't know. I definitely have AS (re: speech development), but I stim an awful lot. I have numerous different stims, and though not all of them actively prevent me from doing anything else at the time, there are very few times in a day when I'm not doing any stimming at all.

To be honest with you guys I'm scared sh*tless of the fact that I might have high functioning autism. I'd way prefer to have Aspergers since there is a way better chance of people with Aspergers leading normal lives. This could eventually be a possibility for me.

Aspergers is the "better" of the two to have, right?

Last edited by patrick6 on 24 Apr 2008, 7:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

This is good news for me. Glad you said this!

All of us stim at differing degrees. The higher functioning part of AS, I think, is the ability to make the stims look not so weird in a social context. It's always involuntary, but we have differing rates of success controlling it. For me, the more relaxed that I am, the less I stim. The more stressed that I am, the more I feel the need to stim and the more stressed I get needing to control the stimming in some way. I always know I've had a rough day when I feel like I get into bed and just want to wiggle around for about an hour because I haven't let myself have the outlet of stimming.

I think the level of functioning part kicks in with the cognitive ability to realise whether or not the stimming is socially acceptable to others. Hell, who knows, in a land of autistics perhaps we'd all stim more and thus be more creative because we're not wasting all of our time and energy trying to look more normal.

I was diagnosed with "HFA" for the reasons outlined in the DSM--parts of objects, rituals and routines, motor mannerisms, etcetera. I didn't know they were in the DSM at the time (the psychiatrist knew far more than I did and do).

I sway every time I stand, so you could say that I "stim" a lot (plus I constantly curl my hands up and hold them against my chest when I walk). I guess this can be seen as "clinically significant".

I don't think you should be worrying what label has said to have the better outcome.

You won't magically change if you're found to have either AS or HFA.

I just thought of something. I have a feeling that OCD being co-morbid with Aspergers would cause an aspie to stim more than an aspie without OCD as a co-morbid disorder. I am nearly 99% sure that I have OCD since it runs in my family and I display strong symptoms of it. Lots of my stims involve numbers (I will count things while tapping my foot) I'll also do things like tap on things while having a song stuck in my head, which may sound normal, but I get the "stimming" feeling inside of me when I do this.