Where is the Border?

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How Autistic do you have to be in the roughly 1% of the population considered to be ASD?

I am especially thinking of Intelligent Adults (me)

It doesn't matter how autistic you are; if you are autistic then you are in the 1%.

I'm not sure I understand the question.

Are you asking how severe a person's autistic symptoms/traits need to be to be diagnosable?

If so, I would have to say, severe enough to cause "clinically significant problems." A person could otherwise fit every criteria for diagnosis (intense, unusual interests; problems interpreting/using nonverbals; stimming; etc.), but if their issues don't cause negative consequences, they wouldn't qualify for a diagnosis. They still might be considered to fit the Broad Autistic Phenotype, having an autistic neurology but subclinical presentation.

>Are you asking how severe a person's autistic symptoms/traits need to be to be diagnosable?

Perhaps its the same question, but I don't think you can diagnose an adult the way you can diagnose a child. So it is more how severe in somebody that would have been diagnosed as a child.

Also I don't think impairment would be used? At least not for a functioning intelligent adult?

1%? Surely the Autistic rate is just a tad higher than that. Maybe 3%, at least. Autism ain't rare. A few people I know seem socially awkward and strange, and sometimes I wonder with them, although Autism isn't necessarily the answer to people's unique awkwardness and quirks.

As I understand it, the word "autistic" can mean having autism, or it can refer to traits of autism, in varying degrees.

The second post in this thread seems to use that first meaning. If you're autistic, you're on the autistic side of the border.

I'm thinking your question comes from the other use of the word autistic. That autisticness and NT-ness can come in various amounts or degrees. I've got some of both.

So, I understand the question as: what degree of autisticness does one need to have in order to be on the autistic side of the border?

I can't say I have an answer. I wouldn't even know in what terms to put an answer, where I to attempt it. I do think it's something that varies. It varies with who's drawing the border. And, perhaps, it varies with the situation one finds oneself in. Or with how one is functioning at a particular time.

Current statistics say 1 in 110 people, so just under 1%.

There are more conditions that contribute to social awkwardness, and social awkwardness itself need not be pathologized.

Yer, I suppose so. Autism isn't just the only neurological condition. There are plenty of other conditions and learning disabilities besides Autism. It's called neurodiverse. So I guess you're right.

Trust me to be in that one per cent!

I'm a little confused by your comment about intelligent adults. I'm a (very) intelligent adult, and I am moderately autistic. The two are not mutually exclusive by any means.

Right there with you.

I do not doubt it. But it's true that in intelligent adults recognizing a mild case of AS can be difficult since one has developed ways to cope. Of course it's not the case with everyone and there are very smart adults that are very autistic.

Actually is required. It is silly because given the same neurology you can be impaired or not depending on other life conditions. But the criteria are made to decide who "needs support", not who is "neurologically different".

Likewise, homosexuality was (long ago now), removed from the DSM, not recategorized, because they aren't in the business of cataloging neurological differences. Only disorders. If you aren't impaired by it, it's not a disorder.

It makes sense. But then there are a lot of people who are definitely not NTs but not diagnosable on spectrum.

Milder cases without need for medical assistance would probably be unnoticed in the statistics. I am fully capable and sometimes even extremely capable in doing many practical and theoretical things, but when it comes to social stuff I am severely dysfunctional, but what statistic would see that, and relate it to autism?