What makes someone autistic?

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And the corollary question... can one be autistic without any of the "bad" traits? I do realize that "bad" is kind of subjective, but I'm referring to the traits that cause the most severe social interaction issues.

I'll use myself as an example, since I know me pretty well.

I do:
miss non-verbal cues I'm not familiar with,
occasionally say the wrong things,
have some trouble with theory of mind (mild),
think I'm perceived as "charmingly" instead of "hopelessly" naive,
think in pictures,
think associatively,
take people literally,
have "special interests" I can get lost in,
get highly passionate about my opinions,
see the world very differently than most people around me (and others know it),
have absolute pitch,
remember long chains of numbers and/or notes without much effort.

I don't:
have co-morbid conditions (that I know of),
have meltdowns,
get depressed,
have issues with being touched (I have the opposite if anything),
have sleep problems,
have NLD symptoms (except not being able to find objects in clutter),
have sensory hypersensitivity issues (any more, at least),
have a "flat effect" or 1000-yard stare,
have noticeably inappropriate eye contact,
creep people out when I talk to them,
feel like it is any effort to socialize with people I trust.

That's all today. When I was a child, things were markedly different. I had some aural sensitivity, but I don't think it ever caused a meltdown (I did want to hide in my room, though). I got very good grades in school but often daydreamed through class, leading my teachers to call me "very unusual" and "a boy who should be tested." I had few friends in elementary school and even fewer in junior high and the early part of high school. I really was off in my own little world most of the time (although I was fully cognizant that there was a real world).

Somewhere in high school, it's as if someone flipped a switch. I suddenly had friends... friends that, to this day, say I am one of the most friendly, kind, tolerant, and welcoming people they know. They have laughed at even the mere suggestion that I might have impaired social skills.

They say that autistic traits bleed into normal traits. So, in that case, where does being strangely neurotypical end and being autistic begin? Given the traits I listed above, on which side of the line would you put me?

I think you can be autistic without having the difficult traits. If it's a matter of brain wiring then it's only society's interpretation of what's right. What if you didn't like to be touched in a culture where that was the norm?
I guess there's a reason why they're called co morbid. Still I think you're one of the lucky ones.
When my son was diagnosed I thought the co-morbid was the autism. SPD that is. Otherwise he just reminded me of myself.

the little italics thingy didn't work right. did not mean to overemphasize.

Yes. Such people are most often referred to as "geeks" or "engineers"

Okay, so I realize I'm not necessarily going to get agreement on this. I'm just interested in your opinion. So let me try this again...

I have heard it said that autistic traits butt up against "normalcy" and that it is certainly possible to be NT yet have some autistic traits. If you believe this, where do you draw the line between being NT and being autistic? In cases where it is close, are there traits that you would consider to be absolute autism disqualifiers (such as the traits aren't serious enough)?

Autism.



This response is brought to you by NLD.

Personally, I would just go by the DSM-IV (otherwise it's pretty much impossible to know where to draw the line).

Then again... maybe according to the DSM-IV I wouldn't get diagnosed today (cause I fixed a lot of my social problems through training)... does that mean I *was* autistic and now I'm not? Hmm I see the problem here. A very difficult question to answer.

Having co-morbid conditions is certainly not a prerequisite for AS (at least that I know of... ).

I'm glad you don't get some of those negative aspects fiddlerpianist, they can really suck. I wish I didn't have meltdowns and shutdowns, although I am lucky I suppose cause I have pretty good endurance before I get to that point (but once I get there it's full on).

I think this basically goes by the DSM-IV and whether the criteria cause significant impairment. For instance, I have some elements of OCD, but the it isn't disruptive enough to be diagnosed with OCD.

Yes, exactly. You can say that you can go by the DSM-IV, but then you also can't say, "Once autistic, always autistic." If you say, "Once autistic, always autistic," where is the line?

"Autistic aloneness" and "desire for sameness" [from birth till death], by the man, Leo himself.

Genes.

ruveyn

Having the triad of impairments (social, communication deficits and repetitive/stereotyped behaviour) and - I think - being mostly aware of its severity and that it's severe enough not to doubt it.

In real life, I just go with the ICD-10.

That depends on how you understand autism.

Do you think it is a real thing? Something that exists beyond criteria and definitions such as that Down's Syndrome is described a lot too but has a very obvious chromosomal cause that's just there?

Because for now, I for example go by the other possibility. Autism is not a 'real thing', it's a construct made up by symptoms that were given the name autism if they appear in a certain by ICD/DSM/other defined combination.

Seeing how we know next to nothing about what autism really is, I see much reason in the criteria. It's mostly the only way to give the label autism a reason to exist - which is currently to diagnose those who are worthy of diagnosis by being impaired, at risk of disability or in dire need to find their way in this world.

Which basically means that you're autistic if you meet the criteria in full. Which you either do or don't, that's very clear cut.

That's the reason to keep autism currently. If we drew the line elsewhere and make people who don't fit the criteria in full autistic too, there'd have to be another way to give services to all those people with the thing currently called autism who need the help.

Until then I'm very concerned with calling anyone who doesn't meet the criteria autistic because autism - even if the people are really really autistic by a another, yet undiscovered definition and just have a form of autism that they can live with all right. Such as autistic by genes or whatever.

I suspect that the autistic community is in for lots of different causes/people who have lots of differently caused types of autism that are currently loosely covered by the criteria with another part of people who have autism too that is not covered by the criteria/any other definition yet.

^Sora, this means that you believe that autism is not permanent? Say you'd have the triad of impairments earlier in life, but later in life the severity of those impairments has diminished to the point of them being questionable. This means you that you formerly had been autistic but now are no longer autistic.

I have said in other threads that part of the reason I believe autism is genetic is because I can see traits of myself, my husband and various relatives in our autistic daughter. So why did she get a diagnosis and none of us did? Impairment. There are things that are small in us and other relatives that are writ large in her. But it is the "writ large" part that causes her so many problems. Constantly interjecting lines from songs and movies into conversation in us ramps up to echolalia in her. I dislike moving the furniture around- I pick a room arrangement I like and stick with it. She comes unglued if anything changes, ever, even a little. These are both the same thing really. But my preference to choose a favorite furniture arrangement or sit in the same seat in class (back in the day) didn't impair my life because I didn't come unglued if things didn't work out the way I liked. She comes unglued. And this strong adverse reaction to change (as opposed to my mild adverse reaction to change) really affects her quality of life because change is a constant part of life so she is constanly being upset by it. It's all a matter of degree.

I think it's that way with a lot of neurological things. It's all a matter of degree and the "line" is impairment. It's that same line that divides "homebody" from agoraphobic and "confident" from Narcissistic Personality Disorder that makes healthy relationships impossible. Lots of things are no problem and normal if writ small but a big problem and DSM-worthy if writ large. It's a matter of degree.

Of course it is the DSM's job only to look at impairment because, by definition, anybody who is in a psychitrist's office seeking help or a label is there for a reason. Things get really fuzzy when parents get a diagnosis for their child because their child is having problems and then see those problems as being writ small in themselves. These parents stand on the border (if we insist on seeing this as linear) because is something really diagnosible if it never caused you a problem and you never even considered it until it caused a problem for your child because it got magnified a hundred-fold? Or did these parents have problems as children but suffered in silence because the diagnosis didn't exist yet? It's very fuzzy because, as Sora said, these diagnoses and the very notion of Aspergers or Autism Spectrum itself are artificial constructs created to explain why some people seem to have very similar problems in life. It isn't as cut and dried as Down's Syndrome and can't possibly be unless it gets pinpointed to be a very discrete genetic phenomenon that is able to somehow explain why some people with the gene(s) are brilliant if quirky mathematicians while others slam their heads against a wall until their retinas detach.

I am very leary of the notion that humanity can be parsed out linearly and everybody is a point on a line, whether it is IQ, autism spectrum or any other linear construct we come up with to explain human minds. But at the moment, all we've got is this linear contruct and so, using that linear construct, I'd say that "impairment" is the divide. But I also don't wholly believe in this linear construct and think that the notion that the world divides neatly into AS and NT with everybody being one or the other is absolutely false, even as I use those shortcuts myself in posts.

I was thinking about responding but you've just articulated my exact thoughts. Yay!