In defence of the self-DX "mild" Aspies...

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I'm sure there are a lot of people who do that. In my case it was over half, not one or two, and I never would have entertained it without the independent, unprompted, unsolicited opinions of people who know me.

There is, of course, the issue of severity, which is the real trick for me, because I have no idea what it's like to have an indisputably NT brain, again, independent opinions help, I suppose.

On the topic of the OP rather than the quoted post, what I meant by the part about context-sensitivity was that the symptoms of two identical Aspies may seem to have differing severity due to the differing context, eg: twin brothers with (for example's sake) identically wired brains, one going from high school to an entry level retail job where he is required to constantly interact socially with NTs, the other going into a Computer Science degree, where he is much less frequently required or expected to interact socially, and probably has a lot of nerdy NTs, a few mild Aspies, and maybe 1-2 very obvious Aspies for classmates. By observation in context, one may seem more severe than the other, even though their neurological condition may be identical. Bear in mind I am no neuroscientist, of course, so this hypothetical may be impossible, but I still feel it illustrates the point.

Well for the past few months I have had lots of social interaction, and my abilities still remain the same.....I still am not very comfortable around people I don't know, cannot usually make eye contact with people I don't know and you get the idea. It seems in my case being in lots of social settings does not improve these things.

What I meant was that the twin in the vast majority-NT context probably seems more severe by comparison to that context and that the job requirements expose his AS more than the twin in the less-NT context, who probably seems more normal by comparison to his context.

oh alright, that makes more sense.

There are many reasons why one might seek a diagnosis or not, including economical pros and cons. This topic has been discussed so many times that it's not worth fathoming all the aspects.
Since the focus of the OP was on self-dx and "mild AS", I'll say just something about the use of recognizing the condition in the cases when it is not majorly impairing. Actually this is a issue because many doctors are not eager to diagnose someone who has decent coping skills, even if he has clear autistic traits, because the diagnostic criteria, strictly intended, require the disability. Nevertheless there are a lot of people who do not need substantial support, but still are wondering why they seem to experience the world in a totally different way and are going through distress because they find it difficult to understand NTs, so even though they might not benefit from having a diagnosis that wouldn't allow any useful service, that might be unattainable because the doc object you are not unhappy well enough, or that might even result in increased discrimination, they still benefit from being able to come here or in similar places to discuss common issues and being provided advices that are more sensible than those a NT could give.

definitely. i cant stop doing research lol

Tony Attwood said in an interview (see below) that possibly 80% of self-diagnoses for AS were correct, if the person is a college student and suspects they have AS. After all, they know themselves.

Watch this video (the important bit starts at 9:43, if you don't want to listen to all the other questions):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKULcoVTDhU

I was where you're at a while ago. Well, mild only meaning that you couldn't tell it to meet me. It's not like I have real life friends or anything crazy like that.

Ended up deciding to go the formal route and have a full diagnosis. Was expensive and can't say I'd recommend it to everyone. Hell, even with a clinical diagnosis everyone still says "Suck it up, everyone is ASD to some degree".

I'm all for awareness, but when did we move from "autism is horrible" to "everyone has autism" in the common perspective anyway? It's better than kid-gloves treatment I suppose, but I was expecting something at least.

Yes. I like this post.

With this in mind, should it be considered true and right for such a person with clear AS traits who is not significantly impaired (is capable of at least some meaningful social interaction with NTs even if it is unnatural and somewhat stressful if sustained, high functioning, etc) to self-identify as "Aspies"? If we say it is a personality descriptor, I say yes, if we say it must be a disability, maybe not...

What do you (collective) think?

If it gives moral support and self understanding ("I am not the only weird person in the world", "I am not a callous rude bastard as I've been called so many times, it's just I don't have a good ToM"), then YES; if it makes you feel defective or focus too much on limitations, nope. One thing to remember is that not all the challanges that you read about AS will apply to you for the mere reason you are somewhere on spectrum.

As for the disability thing: at the moment "Autism" is a disability because if you are not disabled they don't diagnose you (I speak for Italy, in the US it seems to be different), but you can be neurologically autistic without being disabled. Two different aspects.

This was a very interesting purpose but they are not passing it: http://www.psych.org/MainMenu/Research/ ... eport.aspx

Here's the problem for me...

My psychiatrist diagnosed me with Asperger's. I am very significantly impaired by it. I have speech/language issues, self help issues, self injury, staff 40 hours/week, can't work, don't drive...

In my experience, it is the "mildest" people with autism who are the most vocal. So when I say I have ASD or AS, people wonder why I can't do xyz, because so-and-so with Asperger's that they met can.

I would say that people who have traits of AS but are not impaired do not have mild AS, but rather traits of it.

That is certainly an effect I would not want to have on Aspergians.

An identity of "traits of AS" sounds accurate enough, but I wonder if someone so thoughtless as to assume all Aspies are the same will be able to notice, much less understand and appreciate the difference between "traits of AS" and "AS"?

That is true unless something impairs functioning in some way it's not really considered a disorder or at least should not be.

True--I believe that is part of every DSM diagnosis:

Significant impairment is incredibly subjective. It's as gray as a gray area could ever be. One one hand, AS isn't stopping me from reaching my goals in life. On the other hand, my goals in life are totally different from those of the average person.