Are you less aspie now than you were when you were little?

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While I dont think autism declines as you get older, I certainly beleive you can deal in life and with yourself much better. You learn more about how to do things in life, and primarily how to deal with others. You are awair of yourself, and I hope everyone knows what I mean by that, basicly as a child I know I could not experience myself thru others eyes, so I would act out and do strange or bad things, but now I realize that just as I preceive others they precieve me, and so I need to be awair of myself and how I may come off to others. I think I am much less sensitive now then when I was little, I handel stress, or sensory issues better. Finally I am much better towards family and friends, i realize now they have feelings and are not put on Earth soly to do things I tell them to do and be treated wrong. Many ASD'ers improve in adult hood, it just takes a little longer then typical people, and alot more work.

I think I'm a lot less AS now than when I was a kid. When I look back, I think I was very strange.

Same compared to when I was little (3-6); I know some bigger and gooder words from listening too much. I still cannot talk to people; I still cannot do...most things someone my age should be able to do.

It's how it is.

The aspie quiz is meant to be taken by adults, not small children. It's never been normed by age, either. If it were, chances are that there would be more of certain traits on average in children, and less of the same traits on average in adults.

The DSM-III-R criteria for autism took this into account, when they said that their criteria for autism were set up so that the first ones given in each section applied more often to younger children with autism, and they gradually worked their way up to what on average applied more often to older children with autism.

So for instance, one section read like this:



The aspie quiz doesn't do that, and hasn't yet attempted to do that, to my knowledge. And the DSM people have never really studied the variations of what autism looks like in adults.

I don't think I'm less intelligent than I was when I was little, but I do think that IQ tests (which are dubious anyway as far as measuring intelligence goes) are normed on non-autistic people. I didn't develop in the same pattern as a non-autistic person, so when I was little I had an IQ score very far above average and now it's a little below average. That particular kind of test is normed so that a non-autistic person should get a score in roughly the same range as they grow older, so they're normed for non-autistic cognitive development (and possibly some forms of autistic cognitive development, but certainly not mine). I think what happened was I developed early some things that are spectacular in a five-year-old, but never developed those things much past them after I developed them, so they don't look as spectacular in a 15-year-old, and then not that spectacular at all in an adult, and meanwhile other things were developing that the test doesn't really test for as much. So it's not that I was a genius when I was little or that I'm "dull normal" now, it's just that nothing entirely measures whatever intellectual skills I do have.

I also don't think I'm "more autistic" because of the things I do more of since I was younger that happen to be described as "autistic things", nor "less autistic" because of the things I do less of since I was younger that happen to be described as "autistic things". I don't think that the DSM criteria (or the aspie quiz) measure how autistic a person is, they just measure certain behavior and other aspects of a person's life that point out that a person is autistic. They have not yet determined what the core features of autism are, so as one autism researcher pointed out to me, we don't even know whether people who function better in the non-autistic world are "less autistic" or "more autistic" yet, because we don't know if having just a little of whatever autism is, means that a person will function a whole lot worse than other autistic people in the non-autistic world, or a lot better. We simply don't know which exact traits are autistic, but it's likely they are cognitive and perceptual traits that the assorted diagnostic criteria and outward signs are just superficial markers for (and we don't yet know whether having more of the superficial markers actually means having more of the core traits yet, it could just be that the core traits predispose a person to develop a little in one direction and a lot in others, and depending on which direction that takes in various parts of development, that could result in a lot of what looks like stereotypical autistic traits or only a little).

i seem to stay almost same i got bad tantrums as kid and i still do.. but if i have to choose i would say less

Last edited by batista90 on 18 Dec 2007, 12:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm no less aspie than I was as a child; I've just learned better coping skills, so as to not alarm the NT majority (we are, after all, only approximately one-half of 1% of the general populace...).

I'm inclined to say I'm far less aspie. I can pass off very easily as NT without even thinking about it; as soon as I step out the front door I put on my 'NT face' and away I go. It used to be very stressful but I've learned to just do it without thinking these days. Nobody realises I have AS.

I still have all the problems I did when I was a kid; I've just learned to know what my triggers are and what'll set me off and what is/isn't acceptable, so I can deal with them before they become an issue.

Things like stimming I still do, only I do them in more subtle ways. I'll scratch my head, for example, or literally twiddle my fingers, or tap my root and swing it in repetitive patterns... things like that.

I've been thinking back on my childhood and teen years. I'd say I am about the same. Although I've learned to curb some stimming, and learn how to 'get along' in the world. I guess maturity just kicked in and it was sink or swim.

Think that sums it up for me really!!

You never become less of an aspie. You merely adapt through a process known as classical conditioning.

nope... as i get older i become more autistic, especially my sensory integration disorder keeps getting worse...

thats it.. im naming it sensory disintegration disorder!

hard to say. I always had forced association what with being a twin. I also lived out in the country and had a whole world of dirt, and outdoors to explore. I dealt with school pretty well, because i loved to learn how to write and spell, but i could not tie my shoes to save my life. I do know that i used to throw tantrums like crazy as a toddler. I have really gotten the tantrums under control and they are much fewer and far between. my parents divorce seemed to ignite a lot of negative aspie behavior. When you cant control your family breaking apart, stuff seems scary. I still have all kinds of problems, but it seems like things are levelling out but i am still a big child sometimes. ok, all of the time. i am just happiernow because i know that im perfectly normal on my own planet. I take meds for depression and social anxiety and that helps. I will never be a social butterfly, but its ok. I am much closer to understanding myself.

Less in some ways and more in some ways. I have fewer meltdowns now, and I'm more able to be spontaneous. But I do some things more now, like stimming, because I have less need to hide them.

I think I'm about the same.

That is so true. I've learned to say all the right things, to humor people jovially (even though I don't feel it), and to keep my mouth shut unless it is needed. I think the reason many of us were bullied as children and teenagers was just because we ran our mouths, but what came out wasn't what the NTs wanted to hear.

Still, sometimes something will happen that will remind me just how aspie I am. A customer came in the shop today, bellyaching about his bill, and that he had sent a caretaker down earlier that morning to pick up his project. She didn't have enough money with her, so I didn't allow her to take it. He apparently was highly offended over this, so he lit into my boss. Then ensued a 15 minute repartee between the 2 of them, which frankly made me nervous and angry. I went in the back room and closed the door so I wouldn't have to listen to more of it.

When my boss came back into the room, I asked him frankly, "how much of that was real, and how much was bullsh*t?"

His reply was that it was all BS.

I couldn't tell, one way or the other. The stupid social games the NTs play are ridiculous. Sometimes I think WE are the real people, and they are the ones who should be labeled challenged. Look at the mess of a world they have made for us to live in. There is no honesty and no order in it.

I lost my last post due to problems connecting to the WEB (Internet as metaphor): I have learned to analyze people very well by listening to the real meanings of their words and ignoring the intended ( OBFUSCATED BY EMOTION) meaning: people are amazed by my insight! I find it true that people not only don't listen to each others' words, half the time they don't listen to their own. For a long time, I thought this ability precluded my being an Aspie because one of the first things they tell you is that Aspies are unable to perceive meaning from facial clues, social cues etc, But now I realize that through trial and error, I learned how to approximate normal behavior in self-defense. "How could you do/say THAT?," some deeply shocked/offended person would demand. " huh?"