Question if you can be Autistic and still have social skills

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Can you have neurotypical social skills and still have ASD?



For example, you developed social skills in time, but you had history of sensory issues and repetitive thoughts or behaviors that caused you great distress from early childhood



Another example is that you can have some kind of rare form of Pervasive Developmental Disorder, with neurotypical traits

For example, you only had these symptoms and it caused you distress from early to childhood.


Here are the symptoms:

Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested
by at least two of the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative,
not exhaustive; see text):

1. Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech
(e.g., simple motor stereotypes, lining up toys or flipping objects, echolalia,
idiosyncratic phrases).

2. Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized
patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior (e.g., extreme distress at small
changes, difficulties with transitions, rigid thinking patterns, greeting rituals,
need to take same route or eat same food every day).

3. Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus
(e.g., strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects,
excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests).

4. Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory
aspects of the environment (e.g. apparent indifference to pain/temperature,
adverse response to specific sounds or textures, excessive smelling or
touching of objects, visual fascination with lights or movement).

I think the diagnostic criteria for Autism is a little too restrictive, because since Autism is a spectrum, I think you could have developed social skills in time and still be Autistic, but it was not diagnosed until much later in life or was never diagnosed.



The reason why I say that is because my psychiatrist explained that since Autism is a spectrum disorder, you can have developed social skills in time, but only had symptoms that includes, restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior that has caused you distress from early to late childhood.



Also symptoms that includes, restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior can be a social impairment as well, but can understand social cues and emotions.

The third reason why I said this, it is because females tend to present symptoms of Autism differently then males and they tend to have social skills better than males

I was asking if you could have developed social skills in time, but had restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior that caused you great distress from early childhood.


I do I think if you had only symptoms of restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior that caused you great distress from early childhood, you have social deficit, but you can absolutely understand and read social cues, empathy and emotions

I am sorry for arguing with you, I might be wrong about this.

It's just females with ASD can have better social skills and they can mask their symptoms very well then males with ASD

I do understand what you mean though

It means that if you had only symptoms of restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior that caused you great distress from early childhood, you are considered to have history of developmental delay of some sort, but it might not be ASD, because it does not really effect communication