Is autism the opposite of schizophrenia?

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Not all aspies lack intuition. I've always been intuitive (other people have told me this).

Soooo...

Wogaboo, I guess you're not telling?

I agree there are misdiagnoses every day. It seems to me from this statement though, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that you're basing a lot of your theory on misdiagnosis being the norm.

If you begin with that premise, you are essentially throwing every rulebook out the window, in which case you can pretty easily concoct just about any theory you want to.

No, I'll tell. Just as schizophrenics are more delusional than the general population (hear voices, see ghosts), believe people on TV are talking to them), autistics should be LESS delusional than the general population. The poll was designed to test if that is true.

Actually autism and schizophrenia can and does co-exist in some individuals. They aren't usually diagnosed at the same time but often someone with pre-existing autism can develop schozophrenia later in life. This is because autism has an early onset while schizophrenia might not show up until someone is in their 20s or later.

Anyways, the fact that they can co-exist goes against the theory that they are "opposites". In fact there are some overlapping symptoms. For instance, people with schizophrenia often have intense obsessions just like people with AS. The difference is AS obsessions don't involve delusional thinking or paranoia.

My own personal theory is that schizophrenia is a type of hyper-intuition, i.e. the same subconscious brain mechanism that's responsible for making deep intellectual insights and seeing connections in the world goes overboard. The opposing brain mechanism that's responsible for keeping these subconscious connections in check stops working. The end result is that you have so much intuition that your subconscious starts to make connections between things that aren't quite related in reality, or at least not totally consistent to an outside observer. The brain begins to operate on a kind of dream-like logic where the boundary between the inner world and the outer world get blurred.

Just because someone is diagnosed with something doesn't mean they have it. The people who have been diagnosed with both conditions may all be examples of mistakes made in the diagnostic process.

What are the differences with schizophrenia?
In schizophrenia there is loss of contact with reality, in particular in the form of hallucinations and delusions. In Autistischen Psychopathen though, contact with reality is merely narrowed, not lost. Asperger expresses this contrast through the words psychotisch versus psychopathisch.

Also, in schizophrenics a process can be observed over time in the form of a progressive loss of contact with reality and destruction of the personality. The Autistischen Psychopathen on the other hand are stable, and those with sufficient intelligence often learn to adapt to some degree to the demands of society via the way of the intellect as they grow up. Only in rare cases do they develop psychosis.

Asperger also observed no above-average occurrence of schizophrenia in the families of autistic children, so that genetically the conditions appear to have nothing to do with each other; This however was not conclusive.

Comment
Although only a few percent of those diagnosed with Asperger's Disorder develop schizophrenia later on, this is still a small multiple of the frequency of that illness in the general population. Having Asperger seems to double the risk of becoming schizophrenic. And, of those with schizophrenia, fairly many would have satisfied the criteria for Asperger before the onset of their illness. It appears that the premorbid stage of some forms of schizophrenia is or resembles an Aspergoid condition.

It can however still be observed that Asperger's Disorder (or autism, for that matter) and schizophrenia do not tend to aggregate together within families. It can not be said at this point if and to what degree these disorders are genetically linked.

While the family genetic origins of autism are well established, few studies have investigated this topic in AS using current operational criteria. In this report, we examined the family psychiatric history of 58 subjects with AS diagnosed according to DSM-IV criteria (48 males; mean age 13.34; mean full scale IQ 104.87). (...) Of the 58 subjects with Asperger syndrome, three had first degree relatives with AS; nine (15%) had a family history of schizophrenia; and 35 (60%) had a family history of depression. (...) Compared with a group of 39 subjects with normal intelligence autism (high functioning autism, HFA; 33 males; mean age 15.34; mean full scale IQ 85.89) subjects with AS were more likely to have relatives with depression; schizophrenia; and the broader autistic phenotype.

The study examines the relationship between Asperger's Disorder (AD) and Schizotypal Personality Disorder (SPD), mutually exclusive but similar diagnoses [DSM-IV-TR; American Psychiatric Association (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Washington, DC: Author]. The literature and comparison of diagnostic criteria suggest that the two disorders may overlap: AD social impairment with SPD interpersonal problems and AD communication deficits with SPD disorganized features. Questionnaire measures of AD and SPD were administered to a large non-clinical adult sample. Consistent with expectations, the Asperger's and Schizotypal questionnaires were positively correlated. Further, the social-interpersonal and communication-disorganized areas were positively correlated, though the relationship between social-interpersonal areas is particularly strong. Future research should continue to explore the relationship between AD and schizotypy to confirm current findings and improve understanding of distinctions between the disorders.

Questionnaire measures of AD and SPD were administered to a large non-clinical adult sample. Consistent with expectations, the Asperger's and Schizotypal questionnaires were positively correlated.