Question related to language delays, peculiarities, etc.

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I have read a lot of information about AS and realized that some sources consider a language delay to be a diagnostic criteria, while others do not. I think the most obvious is that the DSM-IV says there is no significant language delay, where Gillberg and others have listed a language delay in their diagnostic criteria.

Well, to my knowledge I never had any kind of language delay. I am not close to my parents anymore, so I asked my aunt a few questions about my very early childhood. One of the questions was whether or not I had any kind of language delay. She said she didn't believe I had a delay in speaking, but that around age 3 I had developed a language of my own that was very alien. For instance, I called pickles lubbyloes.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Obviously it's something I will mention to my psychologist, and I have included it in the information I am typing up for her to look at, but I wonder where this particular language peculiarity would fit into things.

I've read that there is not delay and there may actually be a trend towards AS children talking early. Either way, I don't think a lack of language delay should prevent you from being diagnosed with AS if that is what you are worried about.

Well, that and the fact that I don't know where my weird language I had as a small child comes into play.

I was diagnosed with PDD-NOS because I did have a language delay (though I used single words at 2 but was never able to hold a conversation until I was 6). I also wasn't given the AS diagnosis because my social skills are "too good" (maybe.. well I guess now but it sure wasn't always that way). But I am not sure anymore.. I think some psychs will say you can still have some kind of language delay and have AS and others say you cannot. As far as developing your own language, I am not sure. I know I did when I was 4 but I think I had an auditory discrimination problem... which in time corrected itself. However I went through a phase where I purposely made up words. I don't know whether or not that is a spectrum thing...

It sounds like a spectrum thing to me.

No proof, though. Just my instinct.

The sources I have read state that a delay in spoken language is in the criteria for High Functioning Autism, but not for Asperger's Syndrome.

Since HFA and AS are nearly the same thing, this probably shouldn't make much of a difference. I got this off of the Wikipedia article by the way.

Actually determining language delay is very very hard to do since the doctors aren't there and parents have a very poor memory or perhaps 'hopeful' memory one way or another. This type of criteria needs to be backed up by more than one source and babysitters, if available are a good alternative source of information since they often observe behavior in small children that parents ignore or take for granted.

Good question, and a common denominator amongst Autists regardless of level of functioning. I am a HFA, by Dx, but this overlaps with AS - high-functioning is high-functioning. I am partially mute as well (you may refer to my video clip, URL in sig line below).

In the Haven there is a Sticky: NV talk, Silent Forum - might want to check that out! I should like to write more but I need to leave right away for lab. Just to note: related to Brocca's area of our brain and contingent upon REM sleep too. I have an eidetic memory and this is not a factor in verbal speech or lack thereof. Just a different way of thinking (than is neurotypical) - and with selective advantages.

I never completely made up my own language but when I was around 10 I made my own jibberish phrase to mean "I love you" so I could tell my parents that. Never explained to them what it meant but they somehow knew.

If it's only few a few words that you substituted others for, that probably doesn't qualify as "idiosyncratic language".

Gillberg's Asperger criteria actually can include people with LFA, HFA, AS, or whatever; speech just has to eventually develop (people who use this are trying to go back to the good old days where only nonverbal people had "Autism"). So when certain people speak of said criteria, it's a far broader group of individuals than if one uses ICD-10 or DSM-IV-TR.

Anyway, I'd read the expanded description of the DSM-IV-TR on the various disorders (the criteria look similar, but "Qualitative impairment in social interactions" means two different things in relation to Autistic Disorder and Asperger's Disorder), most psychiatrists use that.

Here.

I was told I didn't talk at all, until very late. Was told that "they were started getting worried" about me, but once I started talking "they could not shut me up." I'd go on and on and on about, for example, how the vacuum cleaner worked. Not real pleasant to be around, I guess.

My daughter spoke pretty much on time, but said very little - mostly pointing and asking "Dis?" (It was like loading a computer. I'd tell her a whole lot about whatever it is she was pointing at and she'd say nothing, then two weeks later she'd use the word in conversation with a perfect understanding of what the thing was/meant/was for. ) She went from using one and two word sentences to very complex sentences all at once - a huge leap that startled her daycare workers - earlier than expected. She also read earlier than normal, but so did I. We both were reading decently by age 4. When she was about 3 she used to substitute nonsense words. I think she was making jokes. I'd tell her about "Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf" and she'd say, "No, Mommy, it's 'Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Bope!'" and then just laugh and laugh. Whatever, it made her happy. I have the dates and the kinds of things she said and did logged in a baby book, and it's interesting to go back in there and read about her 20+ years later. Seems like it was just yesterday...

Danielismyname, was it you who posted a link to information about the DSM review proceedings in regard of autistic classification/criteria? If it was you who supplied the very useful link, could you please repost the link if it is not too inconvenient to you to do so?

I only remember that i called cars 'Tutut' when i was little (because of their beeping) and beeroot 'Tapete' (which sounds a bit like the German word for beetroot 'rotebete'; I grew up in Germany) I assumed this was just baby language though, and we all went through this process...

Yeah, I did that too. I was probably a bit older, maybe 7 or 8. I even tried to make up my own language. My mum thought I was pretending to be an alien.

I was talking when I was very young but didn't realize that the writen language was universal and imagined that it was unique to each person. Only those who wrote it could read it so I tried to invent my own form of writing so I could be like other people.

According to my parent, it was quite the opposite for my brother and I, but I'm undiagnosed... I didn't have a language delay at all, I've talked pretty early and "well" (better than my brother though I have dyspraxic and dyslexic traits). I'm not sure I used typical words for my age though because I've always tended to use "adult language" but that mostly because my parents didn't talk to us in "baby language".

I did that too ! I was always trying to create my own language when I was little, it started pretty early. At some point, when I was 7/8, I even created myself an imaginary friend who lived on the dark side of the moon (because I loved astronomy) I didn't share with my brother so that I could claim this language exist somewhere. I know many kids who did that, most of the time they were pretending to speak a real language (ie English as I'm French)