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Wrong Asperger's Self-Diagnosis

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Meow101
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02 Jun 2011, 9:49 pm

swbluto wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
I kind of think no one should question self-diagnoses. Not because they're never wrong, but because they're often correct. I'll also add that someone who is self-diagnosing is probably doing so because they are experiencing distress and trying to identify it, and it really sucks (from personal experience) to have someone else try to vivisect that while you are trying to work things out.


Most self-diagnoses on WrongPlanet are wrong and that's a statistical inevitability. Most "self diagnosed" individuals here have an average AQ score that has a NT/Aspie ratio of 12.5, and their distress is most likely related to other issues in their life and having a higher expression of autistic traits that influences their social interactions, but not to the point of being aspergian. That is, the person scoring with an AQ of 35 is probably going to be in the bottom 10-20% of the social hierarchy which makes them pretty "socially undesirable"(Think "boring person" or "dislikable person"), but that doesn't automatically make them aspergian.

That's why I'm pretty sure I don't have aspergers. But, still, I'm getting tested just to be sure. During the testing, I'm going to try to act as NT as possible. Once I figure out that it isn't due to being aspergian, I can look into memory problems and then, after that, I'll look into finding the optimal set of choosable personality traits.


MOST self-diagnoses are WRONG??? How could you POSSIBLY know such a thing????? Mine was right, and I find it insulting that you insinuate that most self-diagnosed people here are just "social undesirables" who could choose to be otherwise, when you have NO evidence to support that. A "statistical inevitability"? I don't think so. You don't know the details, so you can't make such a pronouncement.

BTW, I *am* a professional, and I *do* diagnose AS in others...and my AQ score is 43. I would like to know exactly how you determine the "statistical inevitability" of most of the people here without their 'official papers' being boring/dislikable people who just need to make better choices. Please do present the math. I'm waiting.

~Kate


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02 Jun 2011, 9:58 pm

Meow101 wrote:
BTW, I *am* a professional, and I *do* diagnose AS in others...and my AQ score is 43. I would like to know exactly how you determine the "statistical inevitability" of most of the people here without their 'official papers' being boring/dislikable people who just need to make better choices. Please do present the math. I'm waiting.

~Kate


If I recall correctly, his argument was that the majority of people who scored the 30s on the AQ were not autistic, so statistically, since a large number of posters scored in the 30s, many are probably false positives. I may be forgetting many nuances but the conversation that I remember focused a lot on the "false positive" rate.

But this forum is not a randomly selected sample, it's made up of people who have reason to believe they're autistic (which includes being diagnosed as well as self-diagnosed, or just suspecting the possibility), people who are interested in autism, people who have some other condition(s), and relatives of autistic people. I tend to think the accuracy is quite a bit higher than swbluto says.

I also do not believe most people who come here and self-diagnose do so because of their AQ scores, but because of a lifelong pattern of being autistic.



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02 Jun 2011, 10:34 pm

Verdandi wrote:
Meow101 wrote:
BTW, I *am* a professional, and I *do* diagnose AS in others...and my AQ score is 43. I would like to know exactly how you determine the "statistical inevitability" of most of the people here without their 'official papers' being boring/dislikable people who just need to make better choices. Please do present the math. I'm waiting.

~Kate


If I recall correctly, his argument was that the majority of people who scored the 30s on the AQ were not autistic, so statistically, since a large number of posters scored in the 30s, many are probably false positives. I may be forgetting many nuances but the conversation that I remember focused a lot on the "false positive" rate.


Yep. The amount of NTs scoring in the 30-35 range is 12.5 times as many as the amount of autistics scoring in that range in the general population. The significant overlap in the "moderately high score" range shouldn't be surprising given that NTs vastly outnumber the autistic.

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I also do not believe most people who come here and self-diagnose do so because of their AQ scores, but because of a lifelong pattern of being autistic.


If you replace "autistic" with "socially undesirable", you're getting closer to the truth for the majority who come here. Not necessarily the majority that stay or are going to stay for more than a year... *looks at above 2 posters*. And certainly not the minority who actually turn out to be truly autistic.



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02 Jun 2011, 10:39 pm

Verdandi wrote:
Meow101 wrote:
BTW, I *am* a professional, and I *do* diagnose AS in others...and my AQ score is 43. I would like to know exactly how you determine the "statistical inevitability" of most of the people here without their 'official papers' being boring/dislikable people who just need to make better choices. Please do present the math. I'm waiting.

~Kate


If I recall correctly, his argument was that the majority of people who scored the 30s on the AQ were not autistic, so statistically, since a large number of posters scored in the 30s, many are probably false positives. I may be forgetting many nuances but the conversation that I remember focused a lot on the "false positive" rate.

But this forum is not a randomly selected sample, it's made up of people who have reason to believe they're autistic (which includes being diagnosed as well as self-diagnosed, or just suspecting the possibility), people who are interested in autism, people who have some other condition(s), and relatives of autistic people. I tend to think the accuracy is quite a bit higher than swbluto says.

I also do not believe most people who come here and self-diagnose do so because of their AQ scores, but because of a lifelong pattern of being autistic.


That was my question--where is he getting his numbers? If it's random samples, that's just bogus. People here aren't just plucked off the street and given the AQ. They come here, as you say, because they suspect they have an ASD for some reason, or because they know they have one. I've suspected it for years, before I ever took the AQ. It explains lifelong difficulties that nothing else explains, and furthermore I was *right* in my self-diagnosis. Many of us have been right.

~Kate


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02 Jun 2011, 10:41 pm

swbluto wrote:
Yep. The amount of NTs scoring in the 30-35 range is 12.5 times as many as the amount of autistics scoring in that range in the general population. The significant overlap in the "moderately high score" range shouldn't be surprising given that NTs vastly outnumber the autistic.


Thank you for additional clarification.

Quote:
If you replace "autistic" with "socially undesirable", you're getting closer to the truth for the majority who come here. Not necessarily the majority that stay or are going to stay for more than a year... *looks at above 2 posters*. And certainly not the minority who actually turn out to be truly autistic.


I don't know, if I was left to notice my social deficits to realize I was autistic, I never would have worked it out. I mean, I haven't exactly lived a life of social rejection. Usually it's a life of social friction that I tended to be in the middle of due to miscommunication and misunderstandings, and a general sense that people tended to like me, but found me difficult to deal with in more than small doses. Of course, I'm not a neurotypical person who is socially undesirable, but an autistic person who finds that friendship tends to work best over the internet.

Hmm, maybe you should start a poll or something to ask people what made them think they were autistic - I am curious how many think of it because of "social undesirability" versus other attributes versus simply learning about autism / Asperger's Syndrome and saying, "Hey, wait, that's me."

Also, I still disagree with your assessment.



Last edited by Verdandi on 02 Jun 2011, 10:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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02 Jun 2011, 10:41 pm

All these numbers are all well and good but it doesn't address the basics. Asperger's didn't 'exist' until it was added to the DSM in 1994. SO - did Asperger's simply not exist until then? You've got, potentially 60+ years worth of individuals that have never had a dx. And a psychiatric community that barely addresses the issue.

So - did Asperger's not exist until 1994 or could their potentially be several generations worth of undiagnosed Aspies out there? Look at the numbers. 1 in 110 people has autism. That number magically turned into an 'epidemic' when Asperger's was added to the DSM. The rate of dx before 1994 was 1 in 10,000. Hmmmmmm... maybe it was just something in the water in 1994...

Or, just maybe, there are a whole lot of undiagnosed adults. I'm not really sure why that concept is so repulsive.



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02 Jun 2011, 10:43 pm

You two are of... *gasp*... the minority who come here. The only reason why you may seem to be among the "majority" is because your post counts are so high and thus your posts (among other similarly autistic posters) make up the majority of posts. And you two post a lot because your level of autism is too high to do anything else of significance in the real world.



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02 Jun 2011, 10:46 pm

Meow101 wrote:
That was my question--where is he getting his numbers? If it's random samples, that's just bogus. People here aren't just plucked off the street and given the AQ. They come here, as you say, because they suspect they have an ASD for some reason, or because they know they have one. I've suspected it for years, before I ever took the AQ. It explains lifelong difficulties that nothing else explains, and furthermore I was *right* in my self-diagnosis. Many of us have been right.

~Kate


From the initial study that was released with the AQ. But I don't think that can be mapped onto the people who come here.

But again, this forum isn't a random sampling. And yeah, I was right too.

I tend to think people who aren't autistic and come here thinking they might be tend to come to that conclusion fairly quickly (because some of the things we talk about here - neurologically speaking - are kind of distinctive) and leave or hang around because they like the place anyway.



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02 Jun 2011, 10:50 pm

draelynn wrote:
Or, just maybe, there are a whole lot of undiagnosed adults. I'm not really sure why that concept is so repulsive.


Or, just maybe, the line in the sand of psychology has been creeping evermore towards the side of autism because of the pathologizing trend in America. Did you last hear? 25% of Americans have a mental illness or other mental disorder(Like a personality disorder)! Can you believe it?

I can't. It's BS corporate America trying to pathologize gullible Americans so they can put them on a money-siphoning prescription. Pharmaceutical drugs are big money in Prozac Nation (i.e., the US).



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02 Jun 2011, 10:54 pm

swbluto wrote:
draelynn wrote:
Or, just maybe, there are a whole lot of undiagnosed adults. I'm not really sure why that concept is so repulsive.


Or, just maybe, the line in the sand of psychology has been creeping evermore towards the side of autism because of the pathologizing trend in America. Did you last hear? 25% of Americans have a mental illness or other mental disorder(Like a personality disorder)! Can you believe it?

I can't. It's BS corporate America trying to pathologize gullible Americans so they can put them on a money-siphoning prescription. Pharmaceutical drugs are big money in Prozac Nation.


Are you of the anti psych mentality?


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02 Jun 2011, 10:55 pm

Seph wrote:
swbluto wrote:
draelynn wrote:
Or, just maybe, there are a whole lot of undiagnosed adults. I'm not really sure why that concept is so repulsive.


Or, just maybe, the line in the sand of psychology has been creeping evermore towards the side of autism because of the pathologizing trend in America. Did you last hear? 25% of Americans have a mental illness or other mental disorder(Like a personality disorder)! Can you believe it?

I can't. It's BS corporate America trying to pathologize gullible Americans so they can put them on a money-siphoning prescription. Pharmaceutical drugs are big money in Prozac Nation.


Are you of the anti psych mentality?


I'm of the anti-corporate-agenda mentality.



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02 Jun 2011, 11:09 pm

swbluto wrote:

I'm of the anti-corporate-agenda mentality.


I agree with you on this point to a certain extent. I believe if we ever get real health reform things will change.

That said I don't believe attacking consumers is the answer to it. (I don't mean to say that you are attacking anyone here... I haven't read the thread...) I'm trying to say that I don't think it helps to say to someone that one doesn't know and who's only contact with is over the internet that they effectively have no problems. It's like... saying to someone walking with a cane that they don't really need to walk with a cane since they aren't in a wheelchair and that they're gullible for believing they had to go out and buy a cane. All the while not even being able to see the person.


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02 Jun 2011, 11:11 pm

swbluto wrote:
You two are of... *gasp*... the minority who come here. The only reason why you may seem to be among the "majority" is because your post counts are so high and thus your posts (among other similarly autistic posters) make up the majority of posts. And you two post a lot because your level of autism is too high to do anything else of significance in the real world.


Hey, could you not? My participation in this forum is a six month slice of my life, and there's far more to it than haunting Wrong Planet to post about autism. I will not deny that it is difficult for me to do all the things I would love to do, but this does not mean I (or any other poster) have not ever done anything of significance. I do appreciate that you acknowledge the difficulties at work (although they are not all autism, although I think most of them are a direct consequence of being autistic).

Right now autism is my primary interest, and I think I explained other factors currently at work in a different thread when you said something similar about me directly.

Just to be clear, I didn't find this offensive - just a factually inaccurate statement on the basis of limited information.



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02 Jun 2011, 11:22 pm

swbluto wrote:
You two are of... *gasp*... the minority who come here. The only reason why you may seem to be among the "majority" is because your post counts are so high and thus your posts (among other similarly autistic posters) make up the majority of posts. And you two post a lot because your level of autism is too high to do anything else of significance in the real world.


Really?! I mean... really?!

Way to sidestep the point I was trying to make. Go for the personal dig so I'll be all butt hurt and ignore the fact that you didn't answer it... nice. Didn't work - but nice. (ooo - look, sarcasm... go question my dx again why don't you...)



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02 Jun 2011, 11:26 pm

Seph wrote:
swbluto wrote:

I'm of the anti-corporate-agenda mentality.


I'm trying to say that I don't think it helps to say to someone that one doesn't know and who's only contact with is over the internet that they effectively have no problems. It's like... saying to someone walking with a cane that they don't really need to walk with a cane since they aren't in a wheelchair and that they're gullible for believing they had to go out and buy a cane. All the while not even being able to see the person.


No, I'm not saying that people can't improve or some people are worse off in ways that most aren't. But to pursue an ill-fitting label because of it, because that's the trend in America due to various factors (Such as the corporate agenda, the growing psych industry, and the increasingly isolated, paranoid and neurotic average American.), is simply ludicrous and it's sad to see many fall prey to a false self-diagnosis in that pursuit.



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02 Jun 2011, 11:29 pm

draelynn wrote:
swbluto wrote:
You two are of... *gasp*... the minority who come here. The only reason why you may seem to be among the "majority" is because your post counts are so high and thus your posts (among other similarly autistic posters) make up the majority of posts. And you two post a lot because your level of autism is too high to do anything else of significance in the real world.


Really?! I mean... really?!

Way to sidestep the point I was trying to make. Go for the personal dig so I'll be all butt hurt and ignore the fact that you didn't answer it... nice. Didn't work - but nice. (ooo - look, sarcasm... go question my dx again why don't you...)


I was referring to Meow101 and Verdandi and didn't see your post at the time you posted. However, I will now reply to your post so you don't feel left out. :wink:

Or, wait, I already did reply to your post.



Last edited by swbluto on 02 Jun 2011, 11:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.