Is there an Asperger's Epidemic?

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You have been diagnosed twice with AS and yet a government bureaucracy is trying to say you don't have AS so they won't have to provide you with services. If you believe your government and not your doctors, then I could see how you might have a distorted perception of the boundary between NT and AS.

There is a natural tendency for people to compare themselves with others and to form an opinion about someone else's diagnosis based on the relative level of distress. Sometimes that works -- if someone says "I've had a heart attack and the pain you are describing isn't like the pain I had, so you probably aren't having a heart attack" then there is probably some validity to that statement. That doesn't work so well when comparing a spectrum disorder, as people who are affected to a certain degree may assume that others who are affected to a lesser degree aren't really affected at all. The problem is somewhere between elitism ("I'm a real Aspie and you're not") and denial ("I don't think I'm really an Aspie so you couldn't possibly be one").

My AS is benign compared to many of the other people on here. That is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because I am able to live independently and have turned my perseverative interests into a rewarding career. It's a curse because I have spent my entire life trying to live up to the unrealistic expectations of the NT people around me who don't know (or don't believe) that I have a PDD. The more I try the harder it gets. At some point it becomes too much stress and the whole facade disintegrates, which can be disturbing for those who haven't seen me "being autistic" before.

Ahhh, someone that understands this.

Obviously I am more profoundly affected by AS than you are, but this is one trait we definitely have in common. I tried to maintain a facade as well, however it wasn't as effective as I was believing that it was. It was as if I was trying to keep myself inside of a shell, yet people could still recognize that there was "something wrong with me." Usually they assumed it was something severely mentally wrong with me. I always tried real hard to be independent, but was never able to do so. Sometimes it seemed like something might work, but each time the failure became garder and harder to deal with. A series of bad events that occured within that struggle is part of what led to my DX. Those bad events compounded so much stress on top of the usual stress I experienced from trying to maintain my shell that the negative aspects of my conditions (not just autism) became so bad that it reached a point that the only way to get rid of the stress would be institutionalization, or death. Once I started to understand my DX I was able to drop the shell completely. Of course then I was no longer trying to hide the autism, or Tourette's and they became more apparent to peope who I had tried harder to hide things from. Disability has helped me a lot, because now I no longer feel forced to subject myself to the stress that comes with the struggle of trying to be independent and not being able to.

I am almost certain, without a doubt that the government denies him of benefits because he has a work history and has been able to keep a job. They may just word it as saying that they do not believe he has AS. They worded me as being "severaly disabled by Asperger's Syndrome" and having a severe mental disability, yet I have no DX of what could technically be considered a mental disability.

I answered "There are more cases but due to misdiagnosis" because it's the closest answer to what I think is really going on. Like I've said on this forum before, I think that the incredible rise of diagnoses on the HFA/AS end of the spectrum in recent years is due to society's changing expectations--many odd behaviors which were okay before are now unacceptable in society, society has higher social expectations for people now more than ever, and society seems to be tying emotional intelligence with general and public safety now more than ever. This trio of trends, simply put, makes aspies lose out. People who can't keep up with these changes are seen as having a problem, and get labeled accordingly.

In case you're wondering what I mean by these trends, here are some examples:

Behaviors which were okay before are now unacceptable in society--Say you have someone with the AS special interests trait, loves bridges, and goes about photographing and collecting detailed technical information on them. Years ago, nobody had any problem with that. But now they're likely misunderstood as a security threat when they simply love bridges
Society has higher social expectations for people now more than ever--There are many, many examples of this, so I'll just use a simple one: pickup lines. They're really hated by society now more than ever, but likely would have been a lifeline for the person with the AS social challenges trait, who could enter a social situation, and express interest in a potential future significant other, by using a statement that was scripted and pre-planned, two things people with AS traits are very good at. Nowadays pickup lines are frowned upon, as is most other ways to "break the ice" other than a spontaneous social comment (two things people with AS traits are NOT really good at).
and society seems to be tying emotional intelligence with general and public safety now more than ever
Society seems to be tying emotional intelligence with general and public safety now more than ever--I think the best way to describe this is with the oft-used-by-NT line "that guy gave a bad vibe [SO] he's creeeeeeeeepy..." Heaven knows how many times people with AS traits have gotten into trouble, even if they have broken no rules or laws, just because some other party thought they gave off a bad "vibe."

Simply put, while people with their brains wired in the AS way have likely always been around, it is only now that society thinks of it as a problem. AS isn't new, but only now are we living in a world where people who can't help but want to learn about tunnels, people who want to express interest in a desired partner but aren't socially skilled, or people who others simply perceive emotionally oddly need a neurological label.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the soapbox.

I get that too. I have always been a geek, and I cultivate that image in hopes that when people see through the cracks in my facade they will simply associate my odd behavior with my geekiness. NT society seems to have a tolerance for eccentric geeks that doesn't apply to other people with unusual behavior.

I think of all the NT skills I lack, the one I miss the most is the ability to understand non-verbal or indirect feedback from others concerning my own behavior. (Which, when you think about it, is the main way the unwritten rules of NT interaction are learned.) This makes it difficult to judge the effectiveness of my social strategies. At least when someone says "you're weird" it represents a learning opportunity.

I am so like this. I never know how what I say is being taken, so I follow up with explanation: That was a joke, this is what I meant, just to make sure. This was after I found out that when I was joking some people thought I was being critical or even cruel.

The worst part of not having this ability is that even NTs are unaware they are learning this way, so they don't develop any capacity to explain WHY they thought something was wierd. The closest they come is to say, it's not done that way.

In children this behavior is more pronounced and we call it checking. You can see the child looking directly at a parent or other adult to check the result of their behavior. As a therapist I could predict, but not see, the parents' reaction so I would make them verbalize it. Which is what a therapist does anyway, so no one thought it was odd.

I still do this and it can really make some people uncomfortable. My husband had a lot of trouble with this until we found out about Aspergers.

What kind of therapy are you involved in? Are you just making them verbalize their reactions for your benefit (during the session), or is this a strategy you teach parents to apply in the home? Is it for NT parents who want to get through to ASD children, or for ASD parents who need to exercise extra care so that they don't send conflicting messages to their kids?

Is checking an instinct? Or is it something that children acquire as a result of exposure to non-verbal communication from their parents in exactly the same way they acquire language from exposure to verbal communication (ie: the ability is present but it requires development to become a skill)? I can understand that an ASD child who had a neurological inability to understand body language wouldn't think to check his/her NT parents because of lack of awareness that a non-verbal message was available. But I can also imagine a situation where ASD parents rely exclusively on verbal communications to correct their child's behavior, in which case even an NT child could end up not acquiring the normal "people reading" skill prior to entering school due to lack of exposure.

Now that I think back to my childhood, it occurs to me that my mother was *very* verbal with me. She's told me about some of the conversations we had when I was less than 2 years old. (There was a lot of non-verbal stuff between us, too, but draging me around by the ear if I didn't come when called and spanking me when I was really misbehaving don't really count because they're not very subtle. ) I don't know specifically if I tried checking and failed to interpret the reaction, if I checked and there was no reaction to interpret, or if I just never bothered to check in the first place.

The 'checking' you describe sounds as though it is something that is 'imposed', since any checking would only be a fearful glance towards the parent, to see if there was any obvious anger or rage at that moment in time.

In fact, one thing that I remember is a time when I was taken to the child psychologist for tests, and because my mother was allowed to watch while I took the tests (things involving cubes, puzzles, faces, inkblots and all that stuff), and I would glance towards here, to see if I was doing it incorrectly or not. This was something that was commented upon by the psychologist, but since my mother had a furious temper and it was very easy to see what sort of mood she was in. As an aside, the psychologist refused to continue the tests because my mother insisted on 'intervening' in them. I think she was scared of me being 'diagnosed' with a 'fault' and kept out of mainstream education as a result of it.

In fact it is not difficult at all to see when people are furiously angry at all for me, which is one reason why I have not self-DX'd as AS/ASD.

I find the term "epidemic" offensive. I don't think of AS as abad thing. Epidemic is for contagious diseases. However, I have seen quite a few possible misdagnoses.

There are two definitions for the word epidemic:

An outbreak of a contagious disease that spreads rapidly and widely.
A rapid spread, growth, or development: an unemployment epidemic.

The word certainly fits in the manner in which he has chosen to use it.

I don't think it is an epidemic. It's a fairly new disorder. I don't mean that AS itself is new, but I mean the diagnosis itself is new. Wasn't it added to the DSM in 1994? Of course there are going to be many, many new cases of AS!

Nope,

AS was just as common in the past as it is today, but people gave different explanations (i.e they were just dumb, weird or bad parenting) for AS behaviour.

Or "eccentric".

I don't think it is a epidemic. We are all different. We are becoming aware of the disorder.