What are the traits in common shared by schizophrenia and AS

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http://www.tonyattwood.com.au/index.php ... Itemid=473

I have a sibling diagnosed many years ago with paranoid schizophrenia. Because I realised about 5 years ago that I had most of the traits of Asperger's and my two children do as well, (awaiting assessment), I am now really concerned that my sibling was possibly misdiagnosed. Without knowing what the traits in common are, I wouldn't be able to ask within the family if it's possible for the sibling's health professionals to consider (or whether they already have considered) Asperger's. I know I'm not schizophrenic BTW (and as my children have so many traits in common as me that also confirms this further).

Does anyone know which traits in common are involved? I know that traits that differ is probably the delusions caused by schizophrenia, and I know also that my sibling did have a history of hearing voices. However, I've recently become aware of some autists have issues with hearing things that can be interpreted as voices as well (forgotten the medical name for this).

Here we have two problems:

1) ASD is very often misdiagnosed as Schizophrenia
2) Schizophrenia and ASD are related to each other.

Go with your sister to an autism expert.
Maybe she has Aspergers, maybe not. Both is possible.

Flat affect would probably be one of them. Maybe sometimes getting lost into your own head.

Social interaction, communication, emotion processing, sensorimotor gating and executive function are disrupted in both.
Especially, negative symptoms in schizophrenia share similarities with ASD but are also different in some points:
reduction of emotional responsiveness, motivation, socialization, speech, and movement, poor motivation, flat affect, and decreased involvement and activity.
I think that psychosis are the hallmark of psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia, so that's what you have to look at.

I have flat effect and with combination with the sensory issues they once thought I'm schizophrenic.

But in my opinion the sensory issues in schizophrenics are different than those of autististics.

Thanks for your replies everyone. Mayel thanks for the really great list of traits, it's helpful.

In case anyone needs this information on the forum, I found the information about people with autism hearing voices:

http://www.autismhelpforyou.com/New%20- ... Voices.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacusis

interesting. i used to be very sensitive to sounds. nowadays i am not as bothered by it as i was but i still pick up on sounds and filter them as "voices". sometimes these manifast as "full" voices or whispers that come from nowhere though. a vent fan blowing could trigger a string of conversations, belittling statements about me, etc... i think aspergers and schizophrenia/psychosis could be related especially since person with sensitivities can become a lot easier stressed out.


whoops went off topic. aspergers and schizophrenia are pretty much related by "negative" symptoms of schizophrenia. that is mostly social and functional deficits.
but- i thnk what happens with schizophrenia is dopamine causes the brain to reward itself 'too much' to the point where a person is so bombarded by their brain's imagination that it becomes too exhausted to use short term memory or perform routine or social tasks. in my own experience, i have become "crazy" , it is some kind of mal-adaptive defense mechanism to stress. kind of like in the movie cast-away...
as for autism the brain is content in an opioid-induced state...
those are 2 major neurotransmitter theories anyways. dopamine and opioids are pleasure/reward chemicals
i think since both "disorders" affect similar brain regions (frontal cortex/memory, limbic system/pleasure, visual, auditory, speech, etc), that there could be the overlap
both disorders probably have a gut-brain relationship
both disorders probably have a relationship to how proteins are used in the brain (has effect on frontal lobe development etc)
both disorders can be traced to premature birth,

i could go on!! !

http://www.autismhelpforyou.com/New%20- ... mpared.htm

Hi Raziel your link didn't point to anything. The page must've been removed.

I think Aspergers is similar to schizophrenia because both people have trouble understanding social cues and fitting in. My beginning stages of schizophrenia at first looked like Autism imo. I was hyperactive, repeated many things, off in my own world. It wasn't until a breakdown that I began acting delusional, and so they diagnosed me with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia would make sense because my mom also has schizophrenia and it has gotten very bad over time. She hasn't been treated for it because people are too lazy in the mental health system no matter how much my dad wants to help her.

The differences are: while Autistics can get very into conspiracy schizophrenics tend to let it run their lives with fear. At least, many of them but not me. I still obsess a lot about things. I just started an adhd medication called VIvanyse (sp?) to help with negative symptoms. Since I Have schizoaffective it's basically more like bipolar with some hallucination type symptoms. It's different than real schizophrenia depending on who you talk to. Sometimes it's frustrating because I can't focus enough, get really tired, etc. So this should help.

It's possible she was misdiagnosed based on the assumption that hearing things automatically makes you schizophrenic. I was misdiagnosed I'm pretty sure with full blown schizophrenia at one point. But it's changed more to bipolar now. Either way, labels shouldn't bug you. I know it bugs me, but the labels themselves don't mean you need to be stigmatized. Sadly, our media and with recent events makes it harder to find a job and go to school with the label of schizophrenia or schizoaffective. I couldn't work for the military for instance, because I would be considered unfit.

I see. My bad.