Autism symptoms tend to decline with age

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Even before Covid I wasn't going out much.There's no friends so only F2F social contact is with my stepfamily. Haven't had F2F contact with my brother and sister since moving from Essex to Wiltshire in Sep 2017. Chronic backache will make it hard to get to even nearby places even if the Covid situation is under control.

My take away: developmental delay can look like permanent genetic differences when you only look at behavior.
DSM uses behavior. Behavior can change. DNA not so much. Someday they may be able to look at your DNA and "know" things - this might be better than "Behavior" - on the other hand - environment can help specific genetic traits to be expressed or not be expressed. Environment can be social or schooling or can be things like toxins in food / water / air. All kinds of things - basically anything that is not genetic. It is usually "nature AND nurture" not "nature OR nurture".

You can improve if you are one of those who improve. If you are not one of those who improve then you won't improve.

Statistics like these only work for groups - not for individuals.

Based on what I’ve read/heard in my decade or so of being at least a thorough observer (even though I have lacked the confidence or was too afraid of being judged harshly to be an active participant for much of it) of both online communities and in-person observations/interactions, I feel confident in saying that there are probably different cause(s) for different individuals, just as symptoms and expression of symptoms varies from person to person. And if that is the case, then it would follow that improvement/increasing/consistency would vary from person to person, with the specific cause(s) of that person’s autism being the key factor. In essence, what makes most sense to me is that literally (and I mean “literally” literally ) every aspect of ASD varies from person to person.

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i Fit in EveryWhere;

Yet Fit in NoWhere;

Difference Now Others

Adjust to me, Instead

Of me Adjusting to Them;

And If They Do Not; It Does Not

Matter As Now i am Financially Independent

And Do Not

Have to Fit

In, Any More to Survive

And Now Even Thrive as

i Get to be me, me, me, Hehe;

Now 'me' Scores 11 on the AQ Scan
For Autism, The One Who Always
Do Or Die Conformed Scored 45...

Go Figure, My Wife Scores 32 And
She Isn't Diagnosed on The Spectrum;

Autism, Is the Last Thing Now, Any Stranger
Would Have Guessed Was an Issue for me;

Yet That Doesn't
Mean They Are

Still Not Guessing HAha...
Other Than That my Form

Of Autism Better Reflects Gillberg
Criteria For Asperger's Syndrome With
A Hyperlexic, Verbal Delay, Until Age 4;

In Longitudinal Case Studies, The Patients of

Hans Asperger's Were Assessed Later in the Life
Span, Many Who Had Found Niche's in Life Actually
Were Thriving Beyond The Level of Their Peers; Going to
my 40th Year Class Reunion, in 2018, Surely Proved This Out;

As Most of the Folks Seemed Just About Ready to Hit 'The Grave'....

Yet, i Do Live in Trump Town USA, And Here Most Folks Place More

Emphasis on After Life (Death);

Self Fulfilling

Digging

Grave

Prophecy

Early As 'They' Say (Do) Now...

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I never received the memo that one’s tastes in food are supposed to mature with age and that we’re supposed to have healthier diets as we age, so I’ve always eaten “kid” foods. I’m incredibly sensitive to taste and have some sort of mental block that makes me terrified of trying new things. I wish I could get past it, because it’s the most crippling part of my autism.

Just a general fact. Kids don't tend to like the flavours of black coffee, black licorice, red wine, dark chocolate, sauer kraut and many other things that become more appealing with age as our taste buds change.

In my experienced opinion, your "kids diet," depending on what it consists of, is responsible for sustaining your ASD symptoms & thus I believe you are 100% spot on correct that it's the most crippling part of your autism - as it is for many.

Antibiotic use throughout one's life will also influence one's gut microbiome and in turn ASD symptoms.

I am someone who'd be taken as this, and yet it's only because of how it looks from the outside. I would like this issue to be examined in that light, that some autistics seem like they're doing better because of the presence of supports, etc.

Look on the outside and you see that I had speech and developmental delays and a struggle with the school system through childhood. Yet there are times in my life when I present really "normally" from the outside. I became great at outside emotional regulation and "passing" while everything else was basically falling apart. It is usually that I seem the least autistic when I'm not living alone, am not needing to work full time, am relatively healthy, etc. My two big adult burnouts were both after periods of time when nobody would've taken me for autistic and even my new clinicians didn't agree with the diagnosis. It was easy for people from the outside to see me as "normal" in my teens because I wasn't in school, interacted with most people on a computer bulletin board, and could act relatively normal in person for a few hours. It helped when I was younger, too, that I was a cute girl...

From the outside, it would look like I improved with age. I actually haven't. What is more likely is that I had compensations and supports in my teens and early twenties that I didn't have later. And I think this is possibly the case for lots of people who seem like they "got better."

Granted, perhaps some of them did. I know of people who basically have an early narrative of a child with difficulties and challenges, who became a successful, thriving adult. Before the word "autism" really existed in the culture, there were plenty of narratives of successful, even well known people who would be remembered as having been "a little slow" early on.

But lots of people who seem like they "got better" may just have the appearance of that, and a curated image; we don't know what supports they have behind the scenes, or what supports they're taking for granted and not thinking about. I thought I was doing better, too... after living with my mom for 10 years in middle age, lol.

...sorry to necro an old thread but I'm new here (I think I was here a very very long time ago but don't remember what user name I used) and reading the old posts

I've become more aware of how I'm perceived by others. I'm more at peace with those around me. More understanding. Less annoying and or off putting. I understand that a proper conversation doesn't consist of me only talking about myself and my fixed interests.

Learning to be more self-aware, greater ability to control executive function, lower levels of social anxiety probably all contribute

This squares with me, too. Absolutely. I am less at odds with people around me, and more at peace with myself, and more understanding that other people are trying to live their life, too. I may be hugely decompensated, but emotional and social intelligence has increased with age.

Me either. Except mine is more of a cracker-box of solitude.