06 Jul 2012, 12:43 pm
06 Jul 2012, 12:56 pm
06 Jul 2012, 1:04 pm
Wandering_Stranger wrote:
viv wrote:
1. I have a job and my future job prospects look very good. I worked hard for this. What would happen to my job prospects if I were to be diagnosed with a mental illness?
Autism isn't a mental illness. It's a developmental disorder.
It's also worth noting that if you have a job and your future job prospects look very good your in a small minority among people on the spectrum including "high functioning" people if we must use functioning labels. Steady employment is not a common thing among people who are impaired by autism. It's far more common among those who share traits with us though. This is part of why I want there to be more names than just "diagnosed" vs "self-diagnosed", people don't use BAP.
CuriousKitten
Velociraptor
Joined: 19 Mar 2012
Age: 66
Gender: Female
Posts: 487
Location: Deep South USA
06 Jul 2012, 1:23 pm
Tuttle wrote:
Wandering_Stranger wrote:
viv wrote:
1. I have a job and my future job prospects look very good. I worked hard for this. What would happen to my job prospects if I were to be diagnosed with a mental illness?
Autism isn't a mental illness. It's a developmental disorder.
It's also worth noting that if you have a job and your future job prospects look very good your in a small minority among people on the spectrum including "high functioning" people if we must use functioning labels. Steady employment is not a common thing among people who are impaired by autism. It's far more common among those who share traits with us though. This is part of why I want there to be more names than just "diagnosed" vs "self-diagnosed", people don't use BAP.
Take a good look at the ages of those of use who work vs those of us who don't work. There seems to be a rather sharp divide around the mid 30s. When I was in my early 20s I was unable to hold a job for more than a few months, with long shutdowns between.
_________________
If it don't come easy . . . .
. . . .hack it until it works right
Aspie score: 142/200 NT score: 64/200
AQ Score: 42
BAP: 109 aloof, 94 rigid and 85 pragmatic
06 Jul 2012, 1:50 pm
Tuttle wrote:
Wandering_Stranger wrote:
viv wrote:
1. I have a job and my future job prospects look very good. I worked hard for this. What would happen to my job prospects if I were to be diagnosed with a mental illness?
Autism isn't a mental illness. It's a developmental disorder.
It's also worth noting that if you have a job and your future job prospects look very good your in a small minority among people on the spectrum including "high functioning" people if we must use functioning labels. Steady employment is not a common thing among people who are impaired by autism. It's far more common among those who share traits with us though. This is part of why I want there to be more names than just "diagnosed" vs "self-diagnosed", people don't use BAP.
A better definition of BAP would be nice.
I disagree with maintaining a job being rare. It is rare among those diagnosed (self or professional). What about those that are undiagnosed? Even if they fit the criteria, they are probably regarded as odd at worst and likely do not know that they are autistic or an aspie. In that case, I don't think they would be counted.
06 Jul 2012, 3:12 pm
06 Jul 2012, 3:25 pm
How different is BAP to PDD-NOS? 
If you have PDD-NOS, you don't quite meet the criteria for the other types of Autism.
I have just found this:
Quote:
broader autism phenotype: a term used to describe individuals who exhibit differences with personality, language and social behaviour at a higher than average level but lower than that required to meet the diagnostic criteria for PDD.
Source
06 Jul 2012, 4:42 pm
Boomshika wrote:
I first noticed aspergers in myself about a year ago and now i'm starting to see that a lot of self-diagnosed aspies are not taken seriously. apparently, if you self diagnose, a lot of "real" aspies are pissed at that. WTF? what about people who grew up before aspergers was widely known about? what about the millions of people who are uninsured and can't aford to see a doctor to diagnose them?
i personally have never quite felt like i fit in anywhere growing up, was made fun of all 12 years of school, have always had trouble showing physical affection, have always loved computer games, have always struggled to keep jobs. had all of these traits long before i even heard of aspergers. i am 27, and am too old to be listed on my parent's insurance. i don't go to the doctor because i can't afford it.
so because of this, i'm not supposed to call myself an aspie when i know that i am, lest i be labeled "poser?" seriously?...
i personally have never quite felt like i fit in anywhere growing up, was made fun of all 12 years of school, have always had trouble showing physical affection, have always loved computer games, have always struggled to keep jobs. had all of these traits long before i even heard of aspergers. i am 27, and am too old to be listed on my parent's insurance. i don't go to the doctor because i can't afford it.
so because of this, i'm not supposed to call myself an aspie when i know that i am, lest i be labeled "poser?" seriously?...
Though I've been diagnosed twice for Autism by professionals, taking the self diagnosis tests helped me to understand myself better and realize more about my behaviors, so they have been very helpful for me.
Sometimes those who may think that they have Aspergers or Autism has a better idea as to whether they have this disorder than the professionals. I for one, as nice as being professional diagnosis is, think the self assessments are very accurate when a variety of different tests are taken which indicate Autism or Aspergers. You need to take several of these self assessment tests to find out if you have this disorder or if you are just a "poser"?
06 Jul 2012, 5:07 pm
Wandering_Stranger wrote:
How different is BAP to PDD-NOS?
If you have PDD-NOS, you don't quite meet the criteria for the other types of Autism.
I have just found this:
Source
If you have PDD-NOS, you don't quite meet the criteria for the other types of Autism.
I have just found this:
Quote:
broader autism phenotype: a term used to describe individuals who exhibit differences with personality, language and social behaviour at a higher than average level but lower than that required to meet the diagnostic criteria for PDD.
Source
PDD-NOS requires clinical significant impairment, just like Asperger's and Classic Autism. BAP is when there isn't clinical significant impairment. It's people who share the phenotype who don't have a disorder. Also PDD-NOS isn't more "mild" than AS. PDD-NOS is when people don't fit cleanly into AS or classic autism; for example PDD-NOS includes people who had a language delay but otherwise "look like AS".
BAP is all those people who have all those autistic traits but who don't have a disorder. It's not a diagnosis, because its not a disorder.
PDD-NOS is "you have a disorder, its on the autistic spectrum, but you don't fit cleanly into the other categories".
06 Jul 2012, 5:14 pm
Ah, thank you
I've never understood this "mild" Autism lark.
06 Jul 2012, 10:07 pm
CuriousKitten
Velociraptor
Joined: 19 Mar 2012
Age: 66
Gender: Female
Posts: 487
Location: Deep South USA
06 Jul 2012, 10:55 pm
noname_ever wrote:
Tuttle wrote:
noname_ever wrote:
A better definition of BAP would be nice.
I disagree with maintaining a job being rare. It is rare among those diagnosed (self or professional). What about those that are undiagnosed? Even if they fit the criteria, they are probably regarded as odd at worst and likely do not know that they are autistic or an aspie. In that case, I don't think they would be counted.
I disagree with maintaining a job being rare. It is rare among those diagnosed (self or professional). What about those that are undiagnosed? Even if they fit the criteria, they are probably regarded as odd at worst and likely do not know that they are autistic or an aspie. In that case, I don't think they would be counted.
I'd also like a better definition of BAP out there, but "someone who has autistic traits, but not to a clinically significant degree" seems the best I've found.
As for the stuff about maintaining a job being rare. I'm not judging that on these forums. I'm taking that from studies done on the topic, and from professionals.
If someone is "regarded as odd at worst", and doesn't have any sort of clinically significant impairment, they're not in the same sort of category as those of us who are being diagnosed. They are valuable to our community, but they do not have autism in the same manner as I have autism, or in the same manner as someone who is self diagnosed, has a job, is struggling, and does have clinically significant impairments, they just share autistic traits at a subclinical level.
What I mean by odd at worst is that the employer and coworkers will tolerate the person, but the person could flounder socially. Thinking back to my job at an aerospace contractor, there were a fair amount of BAP or and probably undiagnosed aspies among the scientists and engineers. In that position it really didn't matter. If your social skills were not excellent (you could schmooze with your coworkers, kiss up to management, and suck off the customer to keep them happy), you didn't get promoted to management (or didn't last long) and you stayed in your technical role. You did not get a position that required frequent customer interaction such as sales or project management.
Tuttle wrote:
Having a job doesn't mean you aren't clinically significantly impaired. However, that does not change that 80-90% of people with Asperger's are unemployed. Some people found their niche. That doesn't mean maintaining a job isn't a difficult thing for us. It just is something that we should fight for and do everything we can to succeed at.
Struggling to maintain a job is still maintaining a job no matter how hellish it may be. If you are maintaining a job even if it is truly hellish I think it is unlikely that someone is going to look for a diagnosis. There is still the thought that you're just an outlier and there isn't anything really wrong with you. Is that 80-90% formally diagnosed, self-diagnosed, or some extrapolated number of the amount that is thought to be in the population? If it's the formally or self-diagnosed I am suspicious because there are probably more in the population that muddle through life well enough (and have learned to adapt to muddle better over time).
As long as the only real benefit in getting a real diagnosis is getting on disability, those who can earn their income another way will continue to do so. And as long as the "experts" are convinced that we don't exists, they will continue to not count us in anything.
I don't doubt that 80 - 90% of those officially diagnosed are unemployed. Most of the diagnosed were diagnosed in school and are still rather young I didn't find my feet until my mid 30's, and even then I just stumbled along, with ever increasing skill through my 40's.
I fully expect that if science ever produces a prescription medication that actually truly helps spectrumites and requires a spectrum diagnosis to obtain, all chaos is going to break out, and when the dust settles and the tally is counted, it will be found that approx 1 in 38 is on the spectrum (figure pulled from the study done in South Korea where all school kids of a certain age were screened), and we never completely outgrow it. We only learn skills that help us work around the challenges.
_________________
If it don't come easy . . . .
. . . .hack it until it works right
Aspie score: 142/200 NT score: 64/200
AQ Score: 42
BAP: 109 aloof, 94 rigid and 85 pragmatic
06 Jul 2012, 11:01 pm
Verdandi
Veteran
Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 56
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)
06 Jul 2012, 11:31 pm
CuriousKitten
Velociraptor
Joined: 19 Mar 2012
Age: 66
Gender: Female
Posts: 487
Location: Deep South USA
06 Jul 2012, 11:33 pm
Tuttle wrote:
noname_ever wrote:
Struggling to maintain a job is still maintaining a job no matter how hellish it may be. If you are maintaining a job even if it is truly hellish I think it is unlikely that someone is going to look for a diagnosis. There is still the thought that you're just an outlier and there isn't anything really wrong with you. Is that 80-90% formally diagnosed, self-diagnosed, or some extrapolated number of the amount that is thought to be in the population? If it's the formally or self-diagnosed I am suspicious because there are probably more in the population that muddle through life well enough (and have learned to adapt to muddle better over time).
I think its all been in groups of diagnosed people, however, these numbers have came up in multiple completely unrelated surveys.
More recently, for its 50th anniversary the national autism society over in the UK did a giant survey of lots of autistic people, including asperger's and other high functioning people. They found 15% of autistic people had full time paid work.
For more data, more than twice as many 16-24 year olds are not in education, employment or training as NTs at 1/3 of them. 37% of adults never had any paid employment. 41% of autistic people over 55 spent over 10 years without a paid job (so its not just the under 30 year olds here), and of those without a job 59% say they truly don't know if they can ever get a job.
41% of those over 55 had not worked in the past 10 years, or they had, somewhere along the line, gone 10 years without working?
_________________
If it don't come easy . . . .
. . . .hack it until it works right
Aspie score: 142/200 NT score: 64/200
AQ Score: 42
BAP: 109 aloof, 94 rigid and 85 pragmatic
Verdandi
Veteran
Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 56
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)
06 Jul 2012, 11:36 pm
