Your AS and classical autism criteria

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So, I just second ago thought, why not actually talk about what people think should be AS criteria and classical ASD criteria.

Imagine you would have to give criteria to professionals all over the world that helps them diagnose other people with Asperger's and with classical autism.

Just give it a try?

To give you an idea:
Would you include social problems, language problems, talents everyone must have to be autistic?

Routines or sensory issues? Job and work problems?

Would you make a different set of criteria for AS and classical or would you make them the same?


It would be very interesting to know if others would fit your criteria. And if not, why not.

Remember that you probably don't want autistic people remain undiagnosed, but also don't want non-autistic people get diagnosed as having AS!

Good questions. My main focus is on AS and PDD-NOS. I haven't looked so am not 100% sure about PDD-NOS, but can someone be diagnosed with it and be active, socially? Maybe people who are good at socializing, but have certain sensory issues are PDD-NOS?
AS is about the areas of the brain dealing with socializing v. thinking about a certain subject so it's hard to imagine the AS person appearing completely normal to peers. Like, if someone is really popular why give them a diagnosis? Why not just let them basque in the popularity?
You can have the sensory issues, sensitivity to stimuli, and other physical symptoms and be really good at socializing. If somebody notices something about you that seems awkward or they call "weird" it may be an indication things are headed in the AS diagnostic direction.
I think others need to notice something's off about your socialibility for it to be AS.

I only have a minute, so I have to make this shorter than I'd like, but the first thing that I'd do is get rid of all of the differing diagnosises, and just call it ASD, mild, moderate, and severe. Especially PDD-NOS. It's just too ambiguous. It seems that everybody has a different interpretation of what it means. Some don't think it's 'real' autism, and others think it means that one is less impaired. My son is diagnosed with it, and it does impair him quite a lot in some areas.

I don't deny the sensitivities to stimuli are "real autism" if they keep you from functioning in a normal environment.

My main issues aren't sensory. Mine are with socializing. I did have a few issues, like a need to always be moving, when younger but outgrew them.

I think that just having sensory issues would be considered Sensory Processing Disorder. I don't think it's possible to be diagnosed with an ASD if you can socialize without much of any problems.

Using my son as an example, he couldn't be diagnosed with classic autism, because he does make some eye contact, and he does seek to share in a social way. It is in a very atypical way, but when he has something of interest he will make an effort to say "look at that" to someone. Going by current guidelines someone with classic autism wouldn't have any social/emotional reciprocity. He couldn't be diagnosed as AS because he has a speech delay.

His autistic behaviors are noticeable to his peers. Some have asked me if he's handicapped, others have told his older sister that he's weird, or ret*d.

Sensory issues plus others like toe walking, speech delay and stimming, not just sensory issues alone. You might think if people had these it would interfer with them being able to make friends but that isn't always the case.
I agree with you on ASD diagnosis. There has to be problems that others can discern for there to be a diagnosis. I think what happens with AS is we are considered "weird" by classmates. When peers call someone "weird" it can be the first indication that something's neurologically different because they use their intuition and they don't know how they feel about it so they just say "he's weird" or "she's weird".
If other kids are all calling your kid "weird" on a continual basis it might be time to seek a diagnosis.

Same here! It would make things easier for everyone if you just call it ASD, since they are all on a continuum anyway.

I believe "global dyspraxia" (or at least some instances of it) would probably be classed as PDD-NOS in the DSM system .
Because popularity can be very transitory, and does not in and of itself "balance" debilitating effects. The person I know who would fit the PDD-NOS category can be popular, and can be picked on, depending on relative developmental stages (between herself and her peers). But she always has needs that would not be understood without a diagnosis by those who should be meeting her needs.


Others do notice. Even when she is popular, adults notice that she is not like other children her age, and sometimes so do the children themselves. She's a very sweet and amiable person and so often has friends, but she is clearly different from her peers, including being somewhat socially naive.

In fact one of the subjects of Lorna Wing's paper (the one that prompted the inclusion of AS as a separate diagnostic category in the DSM) included a child who was deemed popular with her peers. She had more visible differences additionally and was quite witty and funny. The physical differences might have served as a proxy explanation (to her peers) of her other differences, thus preventing her from being singled out for being "weird" in some indefinable, indescribable way.

This sounds like a good rule of thumb to me. Being seeing as "weird" by many children across a range of contexts for a prolonged period of time does not mean one has AS of course, but at the very least such a child is probably distressed (by their experiences with rejecting peers) and an ASD would certainly explain such an anomalous experience so is not unlikely.

Popularity isn't always transitory. People can be popular in school, join a fraternity in college, be popular there and go on to be the head of a corporation and have some amount of esteem from others although not everyone likes their boss.
I agree, kids who have a disorder need the diagnosis so their caregivers know how to meet their needs.
In some cases, the problem is figuring out who has a disorder.

The thing about that is, it sounds like it could describe anyone. It's a generic description, very bland. Using that description you could easily misdiagnose a child.


People can say you are weird based exclusively on the way you look. It's happened to me more times than I can count.
This is another example of a bland description that could describe either a child with AS or a child without.



I typed weird because it has been used to describe me and I have heard it used for others who don't fit in for whatever reason. People will call eccentrics "weird" for lack of better term. They might not be called weird because they are distressed, more likely it's because they are misunderstood, are percieved as odd and have trouble connecting with their peers.
I think AS is far more than being socially naive. It's this lack of connection with others. The effects can be...um...very negative.

Including or excluding people on the basis of a kind of external circumstance that is transitory seems dubious to me, whether or not the external variable is transitory in every single instance. If it is transitory in some instances, then I would be hesitant about considering it determinative. It is something that ought to be considered, but not determinative (in my view).

I do not understand how you concluded that my observation of someone who I understand fits the category I thought you were asking about (PDD-NOS) could possibly lead to misdiagnosis. She was not diagnosed on the basis of a few sketchy comments posted by me just today on WP. My brief and limited description about some aspects of this person's life as I have observed it, is not something anyone should be diagnosing anyone on the basis of, and is not intended to be such.

Which might be a problem if the purpose of the information was to distinguish between such children, but that was not the purpose of the information I presented.

The DSM reclassification and expansion (to include AS type Autism) was motivated by Lorna Wing's paper which relied on a group of subjects that included someone who was in fact rather popular with her class mates. This strongly indicates against the inclusion of "popularity" as a diagnostic exclusion.

That this child also had visible disability differences slightly weakens the above indication (and I included it in the interests of balance and fair consideration of relevant factors since it supports your view on a "popularity exclusion" more than it supports mine) because the "uncanny valley" effect is often thought to be most marked where differences characterizing a close approximation become undefinable and difficult to conceptualize explicitly.

A visible physical difference can serve as a "proxy" explicit explanation that diffuses "uncanny valley" type anxiety; it does not matter that the difference serving as a proxy explanation is not a true explanation, it's the diffusion of anxiety/aversion (via an explicit believable explanation of the subtle difference) that might otherwise be diffused through rejection of and/or aggression towards the "source" of the anxiety/aversion.

Oh yes. It's the right word to have typed in my view.

Children are all a bit alien to adults in ways they are not to their peers. What adults might explain by the proxy "just being a kid" children are more likely to experience as an "uncanny valley" aversion, most typically (to my observation) communicated by the description "weird".
And interestingly, vice versa, in that if someone likes a person, their "weirdness" is perceived as being "just a bit eccentric".


The triad of impairments effects connection with others. With regards to the person I know who I believe would be classified as PDD-NOS by the DSM schemata, they would meet criteria in all three areas of the triad (as it is represented in the DSM); this has certainly effected connection their with others.

This pretty well sums up my criteria...and all the reasons I have believed myself to be on the specturm.

and the inability to intuitively subscribe to Group think...

Sorry if not very articulate in this very in-depth thread...

Having flash backs of what it was like to be a kid...Everyone said I was weird..grownups teachers children...etc...and not just based on the way I looked...granted I stood out because I dressed funny...

Do you mean that the failure to subscribe to group-think is related to being thought of as "weird" by others, because that seems true to me?

Yes...I think so...That can have a lot to do with being thought of as weird