why are self-diagnosed aspies considered "posers?"

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So you're saying you value data from 3 people more than thousands because you are one of those 3, and know the other two. The data does not support this.

What they found is that only 15% of autistic adults had full time paid employment, but when given enough support in a period of 3 years they could find jobs for 70% of them. It's not that we're not employable, its that we need a lot of help to get and keep the jobs.

in my opinion to demand a diagnosis before accepting someone as Aspie is foolish beyond belief. Think about it for a bit - We may be the only group in the world to demand the often unsupported opinion of someone outside our group that you are one of us before you can be one of us.

And you are completely discounting the study from South Korea. They found 1 in 38, but we're only diagnosing 1 in 88? The difference was they started with a true random sampling, not just those already diagnosed.

I was undiagnosed for 60years - always knew I was different from most everyone around me - Once referred to myself as a geekie - geek for years - Figured out that I fit the definition of Asperger's 10+ years ago - would still be undiagnosed if not for the fact that my son had a problem with depression that lead us to a psychologist who was himself on the spectrum. My brother who is just Asper as I am is still undiagnosed - One of my sisters daughters and her son show unmistakable signs of Asperger's all remain undiagnosed adults. I have friends at a Linux users group that are definitely on the spectrum - yet undiagnosed. Add to this the number of misdiagnoses I have heard about - we have is a real mess here in this community.

as I see it somewhere between 70 to 90% of all Asperger's are undiagnosed - in my opinion to demand a diagnosis before accepting someone as Aspie is foolish beyond belief. Think about it for a bit - We may be the only group in the world to demand the often unsupported opinion of someone outside our group that you are one of us before you can be one of us. If we are to stand up and demand fair treatment we must find and include all of our kind as much as possible into our fold for strength comes in numbers and clearness of effort.

So Let me say -- I see you Aspie - I accept you as Aspie.

We have a wonderful opportunity coming our way -- the "Professionals" are about to abandon the term Asperger's, I say that we seize the term for our own use - that we strip away the terms syndrome and disability from it and use it to describe our community of people - that goes well beyond the narrow medical health definitions and includes all like us.

I personally might not become employable. But a lot of us need help. Without help we aren't employable. With that help we are. And give us that help and we can succeed, but we need that help to succeed. That help costs less, and lets us feel better than as it is now though. But that still doesn't mean we become actually employable on our own without the help.

I personally might not become employable. But a lot of us need help. Without help we aren't employable. With that help we are. And give us that help and we can succeed, but we need that help to succeed. That help costs less, and lets us feel better than as it is now though. But that still doesn't mean we become actually employable on our own without the help.

No, I'm using the ideas associated with statistical significance. These are large populations. There is no reason to believe that people with the same traits as the ones they're selecting for have completely different results of employment.

Also, Verdandi has said that one of these studies started from a random sampling of households in the UK. I don't have the time at the moment to investigate this claim, however I have heard before that there have been studies done in the UK that began in that manner - screening out to find the people who were undiagnosed. They found at that point that 1% of the adults in the UK were autistic. (This is while were were saying 1/100 for children as well). It wouldn't surprise me if they continued on to do other questions at the same time, I just don't have time to look into that now.

None of these are arguing that we're not employable. They're arguing that we're not employed and that this is a bad thing. They're arguing that we're an underutalized group with strengths that should be utalized better. They're arguing that countries can save money by spending it first to support autistic workers instead of having support us, because of the rates that we become employable with support.

I personally might not become employable. But a lot of us need help. Without help we aren't employable. With that help we are. And give us that help and we can succeed, but we need that help to succeed. That help costs less, and lets us feel better than as it is now though. But that still doesn't mean we become actually employable on our own without the help.

That's what I don't understand. I feel that they have as much of a right to be on WP.

Personally, I think we need a definition of autism/asperger's that doesn't rely on a diagnosis. So many people with autism/Asperger's see it as a difference rather than a disorder. Having an officially definite psychiatric disorder shouldn't be required for saying "yes, I'm this way".

I really want there to be an explicitly different word that doesn't rely on a diagnosis and isn't necessarily a disorder and is like Callista's "culturally autistic".

I just really don't want "autistic" to only mean being that want and not being a disorder and being sure that there is clinical impairment too. I care about the impairment, not about the diagnosis coming from a professional. I just have a hard time understanding how people can be sure enough that they can use the self-diagnosis language without ever talking to a professional.

I really want there to be an explicitly different word that doesn't rely on a diagnosis and isn't necessarily a disorder and is like Callista's "culturally autistic".

I just really don't want "autistic" to only mean being that want and not being a disorder and being sure that there is clinical impairment too. I care about the impairment, not about the diagnosis coming from a professional. I just have a hard time understanding how people can be sure enough that they can use the self-diagnosis language without ever talking to a professional.

I really, really, dislike the term "culturally autistic". Maybe there's places where it fits, but not here. We aren't talking about learned differences, which is what "culturally autistic" implies. We are talking innate differences. Any cultural differences come out of differences that aren't cultural, that are more basic, innate, than culture. Culture one learns from the world around you.

Broader autistic phenotype is better, but still, I dislike the assumption that the difference is genetic. Though it's better than the assumption that it's cultural. It's also long, and the abbreviated form BAP is ambiguous.

I'm talking about a term and definition for it, for having autistic traits without regard for whether or not psychiatric professionals thinking it's a disorder, without assumptions about origin. And not just a term for those without diagnosis. Also, a term/definition that can be used as well by those with a diagnosis but who don't define there differences as simply a disorder.