LabPet wrote:
AlexWelshman wrote:
I know that autism is very common among Fragile X, but from what I see; it mainly seems to be Low Functioning autistic peoplle. Is it possible for someone with Fragile X to have Asperger Syndrome? Or High Functioing Autism?
No. That's an incompatible diagnosis. If a Fragile X individual has a comorbid autism Dx, then it's the low-functioning variant.
Fragile X can be quite mild, actually. The clue is in the name--"X". It's on the X chromosome, and females have two of them--essentially a backup copy. Girls with Fragile X will have learning disabilities but usually not intellectual disability. It's also possible for a boy's Fragile X to be incompletely expressed.
Part of the trouble with diagnosis of autism in Fragile X is that language development is usually delayed whether the person has autism or not. You could say "classic autism" because of the language delay, sure, but what if that language delay would be the same even without the autism? Essentially, you'd be looking at Asperger's plus intellectual disability, except that you're supposed to exclude people with ID from the Asperger's diagnosis; but you can't put them in classic autism either because the speech delay is entirely attributable to Fragile X.
I don't think it matters in the end. Fragile X will have a big impact on a person's development whether autism is present or not. It's possible to have severe Fragile X and mild autism, or mild Fragile X and severe autism, or whatever combination you like. This is probably one of those situations where most doctors would just give up on specifics and say PDD-NOS, atypical autism, or simply autism.