Information about AS changing over the last ten years

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Has anyone noticed how information about AS has changed over the years? Did anyone read about AS from the 1990's and information about it was different than it is today?

My teacher bought a book on AS written by Roger Meyers and I think it was published in 1997 and my teacher had lot of things highlighted in it about me so it was like he had written a whole book about me. I don't remember what was said in it. Only thing I remember from the book was how an aspie will try and find an answer in the textbook to answer a question on the worksheet than trying to read the whole thing. I thought at the time, normal kids don't do that?


I mean ten years ago, it said online how lot of aspies want to have friends and interact with their peers but they don't know how or they keep being singled out when they try. That was so me.

It also said how they follow the rules and will follow the written instructions on paper and may get upset if they get broken. Also so me even though I would get confused too by what the rules were so I would think they have been changed and you can do them too now and then get confused when I get in trouble so I thought I was being discriminated and wasn't allowed to be normal.

Now today I keep hearing how lot of aspies have no desire to interact with peers, have no desire to make friends, won't follow the rules unless they're logical. Didn't say that ten years ago.

Also what was nice was there wasn't any stereotype crap about AS from what was printed from the internet in 1998 after I was diagnosed. Didn't say anything about aspies being great at math and all and being into sci fi and can invent stuff.

yes, a clear and simple concept, made sense to your teacher and yourself, even if you did not know how the other kids did things.

Nothing about drugs, therapists, or how to make the big bucks in Autism, and what it takes to get the next paper published.

No Speaking of Autism, Kill them all, no Oprah Special on the Evil of Autism, no seedy XXX Autism Dancing Live! in the cheap part of town.

No, Aliens among us, you can tell by their eyes, and strange movements.

No Homeland Security Department of Autism watching.

I remember the era in education, The five ways children learn, and those other ones.

Now it is used to malign a lot of ordinary geeks, the socially inept, people who do understand mathematics, they may as well be Aliens, and I blame computers, the normal thinking any one who understands computers must have something wrong with them. Normal people have to go to school to learn to turn them on and open a program, and advanced classes for the Internet.

It was about Windows 98 that the world split in two, and normal people could not claim they were dumb and could not read an instruction book, or worse, just go directly to the page about what you wanted to know, not starting at the beginning, finishing, taking a test.

They had to be Aliens.

People who did not understand took degrees in Psychology. They got trapped in a feedback loop, quoting things that contradicted each other, but they were all in the book. They passed with a C-, and thought they knew everything.

I liked the old days.

I was diagnosed ten years ago in '99, so it's unfortunate how it's changed. I also relate to the old information instead of the newer stuff they put out nowadays. And it was nice that there were no stereotypes at all back in the day. I remember back in health class in high school I wrote a report on AS and how it's a part of me, and the class and even the teacher were very impressed. They asked me questions based on current ideas on AS and I educated them of the reality. That made high school a little safer.

Here's two from back in the day (number one is the original description, and the other is from 1995):

Asperger's Syndrome: A Clinical Account by Lorna Wing
Asperger's Syndrome: Guidelines for Assessment and Diagnosis

They don't look much different from now, really. This is of course when comparing them to clinical sites, rather than personal and subjective explanations.

I have read and read about all of this stuff. What it is to be autistic, or mildly autistic, or "similar to autistic" (they wish they knew, I'm sure!).

Quite frankly it has gotten old. I has helped me a decent bit for a "self-diagnosis", but overall I feel like I'm reading a bunch of crap, slung out to me by a bunch of ignorant children cleaning their yard of the dog's daily duty. No, I'm not calling BS on Asperger's, I am calling BS on what they think it is.

How much do they really know about Asperger's Syndrome? I keep seeing this and that, with contradictions here, there, everywhere! Is it because of misdiagnosis and then "facts" come from that misdiagnosis? Is it because they jump on any bandwagon they see and call fact? Hell if I know!

This forum here has given me about as much relation as the articles I've read. Inconsistent. On many things I can relate, but not everything. They say all over that not everyone has every trait, but when judgment comes in play, it seems that every trait is needed.

These people need to make up their damned minds I say!

It's odd how I wasn't given any of this information ten years ago or before.

Perhaps it's just my country or my isolated "neck of the woods", but no one ever explained to me properly what was going on when I received help in the early 90s.

The only help I got was people telling me about all the things I "couldn't do" and providing me with a list of them. I was all negative and accusations. They said I was "broken". They wondered why why I wasn't socialising "properly" but never told me explicitly what was "wrong" or what to do. That's why I was confused and upset after the "help" I received.

I wish I and my family received that information pack that you had.

In my country people still apparently "suffer" from AS and that only boys can get it.

Nothing's changed where I come from as far as I'm aware.
People are just as frightened and ignorant as they always were.

Since AS was first recognized as a diagnosable condition in the DSM, the number of AS diagnoses has increased dramatically. Since 1994, there has been a lot of research done on AS and doctors now know a lot more than they did 10 years ago. While some aspies are great at math, like sci-fi, and can invent stuff, that is only a stereotype. The Aspie = math genius stereotype is about equivalent to the African-American = Rap music stereotype. It really depends on the culture and socioeconomic status in which the individual was born and raised into. Just like neurotypicals, the Asperger population is very diverse. There is not one Aspie out there who can speak for all of us regarding special interests/activities. Not all aspies have a schizoid personality, not all aspies are brilliant at math, not all aspies have special interests, not all aspies lack empathy, and so on and so forth.

Let's use a simple analogy. You have a glass/cup. Let's say this glass cup represents the genes for Asperger's syndrome/neurological wiring. Now, let's say you have water. The water represents the personality and the individual's propensity to be influenced by the environment. If you pour this water into the glass, the water will fill the glass regardless of the shape and/or size of the glass. Thus, it follows that any personality, no matter how simple or complex it is, can fit into the Asperger's neurological wiring, and this personality can be influenced by the same factors as every other personality, but only it can be influenced as far as the neurological wiring allows it to.

I've noticed a big difference in stereotypes in the last decade. When I was diagnosed, there weren't any stereotypes in the media. Now we have all that engineering disease and extreme male brain nonsense.

In the research itself, I don't notice a huge difference. People are still trying to figure it out, so there's a lot of casting about, trying out different ideas.