Does anyone here know anyone else with AS/HFA?

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not knowingly

I know about 30 people with diagnosed AS, and even more people with classic autism/PDD-NOS.

In real life? Uhh... Hmm, I think maybe twenty people, or so? There's at least that many at my school (though I don't know them all); plus the local autism group; plus one guy on the MRDD bus last year... probably more. I don't know whether they're all "AS/HFA", but that's just because functioning labels are slippery. I haven't met anybody who's autistic and has to have 24-hour care, except online (though I've met quite a few who can't live on their own--about half, I think). My mom has; some of "her" special ed kids were that extreme, and she tells me about them (all the while insisting I can't be autistic because I'm not that extreme!). One kid's story made me especially mad because he likes to throw stuff, and they used it as an excuse not to teach him how to use a communication device. Stupid school system. 'Course she's just the "independent contractor" OT and can't change it. She actually got kicked out of that job because the other people got sick of her being "demanding". As in, demanding stuff for the kids, apparently. My mom may be clueless about autism in general, but she's got a huge sense of justice when it comes to her clients.

Autism is quite a common thing in my world. We're one in a hundred, by current definitions; probably everybody knows some autistic people, and just don't know it.

As far as I KNOW...nobody I know well has HFA/AS.


I've met a couple people with AS/HFA in a local support group.


One of these individuals was convicted of some EXTREMELY serious and ugly crimes.


Hence the reason I no longer attend any of this group's functions.

Younger brother had it.
My grandfather had it.
Person across the alleyway in the group home is LFA.
Two HFAs work in the local Safeway, bagging groceries.
I have a friend that I never suspected had AS when we first met has AS.
There is a person in the my Tourette's support group who has AS.

All I can think of right now.

3 friends, 2 AS-ers 1 HFA
2 ex friends, both AS-ers
2 old acquaitences, both AS-ers
3 more from school, all AS-ers
1 LFA from a day centre I used to work at
Friend's neighbour who is probably LFA
2 people at college, both AS-ers

Not counting online:

People who are no longer actively in my life:
2 with AS (a former friend and a friend of my old boyfriend)
1 with residual AS (a lecturer at my uni)

People who are in my life:
One with HFA (one of my students)
One with AS (one of my students)
1 with likely HFA (my brother)
1 with likely AS (my other brother)
2 who are likely BAP (my best friend and my mother)

These weren't included in the topic title, but anyway...:

About 4-5 with LFA. (my cousin, plus a few people who my mother used to care for)

Not AS/HFA, but I feel like it's on topic: one of my friends has a little sister who just turned 13 with PDD-NOS. She's got some brain damage, so she displays many symptoms of LFA, but not enough to be diagnosed. She's sort of a smorgasbord of different disorders, and she's definitely one of the nicest people I've met
(My friend tells me that apparently there's a romance budding between her and a boy at her school with Down Syndrome. They're super cute about it and he holds the door open for her and everything. Adorable.)

Also, in 3rd grade my class had a sort of "fair" for the kids in the special needs program. They all had their own booth where they'd show off some talent, etc. There was a LFA boy about my age who was an unbelievable artist. He could barely speak, but he could draw better than most adult artists I've met. He was taking requests so I asked him to draw grapes, and in under a minute he drew a bundle of life-like grapes with crayons.
This is way before I had heard of AS, let alone suspected I had it (though every teacher I ever had told my mom they thought I was autistic, which she laughed off), and I remember thinking, "Wow, I wish I had autism so I could draw that good."

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Um..well....My very AS-ish boyfriend....my business partner is a sorta ADD/PDD-NOS type (more "functional" than me...but still with difficulties that makes it very difficult for him to get along with NT women....
My other bandmate is bi-polar schizoaffective...diagnosed with childhood autism..and is inherently wired differently from most people in many ways..and arguably exhibits certain "autistic" traits...but somehow still does not count as AS-ish....
Various Houstonian WP-and AS support group members who used to meet up and hang around...um...a few people from the local arts/music community who are not officially diagnosed but have definite characteristics....including one guy who claims he has Downs Syndrome but lacks the physical characteristics and totally acts like a very jolly and cheerful HFA, and My paternal grandfather had traits, as did his younger brother....my mom has traits....a cousin who committed suicide as a teenager might have had traits...and so on.....oh yeah..there is also the mysterious friend of my buisness partner's girlfriend who's dad is schizophrenic and who has ASish traits....

We had a patient who was formally Dx'ed HFA at the dental office where I work, he had a special interest in vampires and apocalyptic disaster which really weirded out one of the dental assistants. I ended up being a cross-cultural interpreter between them!