What is the definition of the autistic spectrum?

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This is something I wrote about myself some time ago which may give you some idea of my problem: ( I will post a response I made some time back comparing me to an article about Asperger Syndrome on my post following this one)

Most of the differences between me and NTs, and the problems they cause, has at its core a block between me and my physical environment, causing my interests, tastes, desires, abilities, and entire orientation to life and reality to be profoundly different from NTs. I am not "doing" oriented, and have no interest and poor ability in interface in the physical world. Such interface can be extremely painful to me. NTs interests and abilities are primarily for physical world interface, and this is what they use for socialization. For example, their small talk usually refers to how they feel about what is going on in their environment. They would be bored with my philosophical mathematical analysis, and I would be bored with their sports.

Even as a child, I did not like games. Social dynamics, i.e. what people do, does not interest me, because I am not interested in doing. (I like clams better than tigers) I do very much, however, want and need social interface, deep and emotionally involved, but except for hugging and cuddling, it would be very undynamic physically. Not only am I into hugging and cuddling, but they are my ONLY natural behaviors (is that compatible with Aspergers?)
But I do not think in terms of what someone does, only who they are. This can be a good thing, because my love is unconditional; it is to who the person is, not to what a person does (remember, I am not "doing" oriented, for myself or for others). I cringe when I see someone working; I have to tell myself that they do not feel the pain I would feel in their place. Because attempted interface with the environment causes me extreme psychological pain, I cannot work or go to school. (I did manage a high school diploma, but after that, I've had it.)
I often do not behave outwardly, I could just stare or freeze. I know what it means when I see other people emote, but since I am not "doing" oriented, I may not emote. My feelings are deep and inward. Therefore, it is they who are mind blind of me, I am not mind blind of them.

I was born this way; my brain became full as a young child; I am psychologically exactly the same as I was as a young child (except for accumulated knowledge). I am genderless, ageless, and neither perceive nor do sex as NTs know it. My "sexual" fantasies would be rated G, and are the same as they were as a young child. Pornography has no meaning to me, other than being disgusting. Infants are also disgusting to me.
I panic if I sit on a swing, or if anyone picked me up as a baby. I cannot swim, ride a bike, clime on bars, or become involved in the world. My short term and working memory is very bad, but my conceptual intelligence is abnormally high (e.g. Einstein's theory of relativity is very easy for me to understand) This splits my intelligence horribly.

But my core seems to be an inborn split from the physical world (i.e. I am not "doing" oriented). Social problems are secondary to that.

This is a continuation of my last post. This one answers your question about how I differ from AS:

AS=what a source said of Asperger Syndrome; ME=my response:

AS: Theory of Mind deficit or "mind-blindness" is an inability to recognize that other people have thoughts, feelings, intentions, and knowledge that differ from your own.

ME: I knew too well that their thoughts, feelings, intentions, and knowledge was different from mine.

AS: It makes it difficult for the autistic person to intuitively pick out lies, sarcasm, and understand whether someone's action was intentional or accidental.

ME: I had no problem picking out these things. However, I hate lies, because they represent chaos.

AS: People with autism appear to have a heightened focus on details rather than wholes, a cognitive style termed 'weak central coherence'.

ME: I have no cognitive difficulty with wholes. However, I have poor working memory, and cannot deal with several things at the same time due to memory. I shun details and crave wholes. However, I am extremely good at seeing the elements of a conceptual set.

AS: Executive function pertains to the way in which people monitor and control their thoughts and actions, which includes processes like working memory, planning, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control.

ME: My poor working memory is a memory defect, not a conceptual one. My inhibitory control is stronger than normal.

AS: An autistic person may have trouble deciding what to do next (sequencing) in order to move themselves closer to their goal because all the tasks needed to be completed, feel of equal importance (prioritizing), and need attention. It is this inability to sequence, and prioritize effectively that often results in not being able to complete a project/goal.

ME: My problem with going through a sequence of behaviors is that one or more of the tasks are too painful. I am fully able to plan the sequence for someone else, however.

AS: Autistics have less than average episodic memories, especially for the childhood years.

ME: I have much much more and deeper episodic memories than normal people, especially for the childhood years.

MY core defect is that my internal abilities (e.g. conceptual) is much above normal, while my external abilities (e.g. interface with the environment) is much below normal, resulting in different interests, thoughts, feelings, tasts, and abilities than normal people, resulting in mutual rejection.

Your writing is very detail oriented.

People often seem to me to question a diagnosis when their internal experience doesn't match the stereotypes or definition.

But the diagnosis isn't just based on our internal experience, it's also based on other people's perceptions of us. They're often very different. And it only takes missing a few small details while otherwise reading people well to stand out as quite different, only a few details about communicating to stand out and seem to really not be good at it

It sounds like you have different interests and desires than most people, and these cause you to be isolated from others.
This doesn't mean that you have a developmental disorder.

I think you missed something. The reason my interests and desires are different from most people is because the brain complex involved in connecting with the external world did not properly develop. I noticed that people had this "magic" connection with the external world that I did not have even as a small child. Any attempt I made to connect to the world was extremely painful; I stayed huddled deep within my family unit and dreaded the future. The different interests and desires just stemmed from that.

I remember arguing I did not have AS because I felt I didn't quite fit and my psychologist ignored my arguments, but I kept wondering and eventually came to the conclusion that wow, you don't have to meet every detail of the description inside your brain because diagnosis is about the outside, how you look, how you function, and other people look at the bigger picture of what is closest. They aren't bogged down in pesky details like how much early language issue constitutes an exclusion, or an early utter lack of imagination.

And by adulthood a lot of learning has taken place for many about our own and other people's minds and the world. Though sensory stuff can still be hard.

We can agree with you this diagnosis of AS is wrong for you, or we can disagree and say it sounds like you do, but it won't matter because the people who do most of the diagnosing see the world not as a collection of details first but as a whole and if you look a certain way, they'll be perfectly content with the label. For them it apparently fits overall, and though you don't fit every aspect, apparently you fit enough.

I did not know we don't remember our childhood, that's not true for me.

It just seems to me your source is giving some things that were found among a specific group that were often found to be concurrent and may or may not be a necessary par of having ASD. The definition of ASD doesn't include all of that. It involves communication problems, problems with social understanding (in a child, can't, by adulthood may me able to think through by analyzing), some sort of restricted repetitive behaviors, sensory issues. The other stuff you mention, I would want to see it was thoroughly peer reviewed, it doesn't look like stuff that's all consistently true in all people.

This not doing things is not so weird to me.
I know people who seem to not be able to do things with any competence when it comes to manipulating the physical world, but they are good at thinking, and they chose education and career in areas like theoretical physics or math.
I enjoy both thinking and doing, so I chose chemistry and neuroscience, which are combinations of experiment and theory.
The people who can't do things have big problems with lab classes, and some of them failed a required introductory chemistry lab over and over and over.
Some of them also failed physical education many times.

I could not do well in school. It was not only too environmentally involved, but I cannot learn by someone pushing information into me. I had a poor short term and working memory. I cannot learn by rote. And I cannot force my brain. In fact, when forced to learn or do anything while exposed to the environment (i.e. pushed out of my shell), I cannot think at all.
But my brother brought me to the library when I was 9 years old, and I educated myself. I now have a very deep understanding of most theoretical things, especially natural sciences, such as cosmology, physics, and biology, but I also understand a lot about human things such as religion and psychology (i.e. human psychology and neurology as part of biological evolution), and can analyze any philosophical issue, including mathematics. But with a poor working memory, I cannot do normal algorithmic (practical) math.
As for chemistry, I understand the underlying forces involved, but to do practical chemistry involves keeping track of too many things at once (I.e. working memory), which I cannot do.
I guess the best way here to describe me is that I must stay curled up in my shell, and to be pulled out is torture. Socially, if someone I like comes into my shell with me, and does not demand that I function outside my shell, I would do very well socially with them. For example, if you set the right person next to me to be tutored, I could do a very good job of tutoring.

In what ways did you not fit?

According to studies, people with aspergers remembered childhood memories more as information and less as reliving it, and their early memories were fewer than NTs. I know this is only an average, and it would not concern me if my childhood memories were the same, or even a little above, average NTs. However, my early childhood memories are extremely above normal, both for the "realness" factor, and for the number of memories. My memories of being an infant are actually more lucid than my memory of this morning.

My communication problems as a child was just that I was very shy. I could tell by their behavior that they were living in an entirely different psychological world than me, and they were so dynamic that I was frightened of them. They were oriented to a dynamic, environmentally interactive reality, and I was oriented to a purely experiential reality. I could tell what they were thinking and how they felt, and I knew how alien they were.

Have you been tested for these working memory problems?
They seem to be a big part of your problems, and possibly the root of having problems doing things.
I think that you should try to get tested by a neuropsychologist or educational psychologist to pinpoint the issues in verbal and/or non-verbal working memory.

I can imagine that if a small child has severe working memory problems and can't do things due to them, that they would develop psychological pain associated with doing things, and this would cause a chain of problems in school.
Since you are good at learning things, you might try learning things yourself and teaching them to other people.

Why do I need testing. I know what it is. Yes, working memory and seeing the world as impossible clutter is probably near the root of my condition.
I can and do learn things...a lot of things, all by myself. I've been doing that ever since my brother joined me to the library when I was 9yrs old. I'm probably the most educated person you will ever meet. But without a degree to show it....well, you know.

I want to teach other people, but my problem is that I cannot find the people to teach. It is the very worldly ability to find people or other aspects of the world, and get them to know and trust me, which is my main problem. It is this connection to the world which sums up my entire problem. I had this problem ever since I was born into a small and unconnected family.

Maybe you have NVLD.
Learning from the library is learning in a verbal, and the way you describe the world as clutter suggests problems in non-verbal brain functions.

No, my working memory problem is both verbal and non-verbal. It is not split along those lines, rather it is split between internal and external. I use any information source I can get, but the information must enter my brain as I am ready for it. Inside my brain, I can process the information very well and place it into what I call a "tapestry of all understanding". Once there, I not only can remember it, but I can recreate it again. Although I forget the information source.

To understand me, the most important thing to know is internal vs external. I function extremely well internally, but the external is defective and painful (working memory, and all worldly interface except affection, counts as external).

As far as verbal is concerned, I do not think in words, but rather in pure concepts and graphs. In the library I have no choice; it is far from the ideal way for me to learn.

What are these working problems, specifically?

I'm not sure what you mean by "working problems".

Are you asking me what "working memory" means? It is like short term memory, but it is many things held in memory all at the same time as you figure something out. For example, while most people understand the meaning of arithmetic addition very well, they could not do "15849+336064+30912967=" in their head, without writing it down. Although they understand the problem, they could not hold all that information in their head at once while doing the addition. Of course, that problem requires a working memory far above average. But most people do have enough working memory to spell "banana" in a spelling bee where you must do it in your head (i.e. without writing it down). But, in that spelling bee, I could spell it "bananana", being unable to keep track of how many "na"s I have already said.
Visual working memory is also needed to distinguish important items in the environment, such as buying something at the store. A store can look like a jumble to me. My eyes see it OK, but my brain cannot assimilate all that information entering my brain from the outside.
Also, while my coordination is good, I cannot hold many physical cues, I cannot thread a needle, or fix a machine. I cannot be a nurse or drive a car. It's not that I don't understand it, just the actual physical information from the outside that must be assimilated is too much for my working memory. I cannot multitask. Although I understand chess, and can think up good strategies, while most people cannot think more than one move ahead, I cannot even think one piece ahead; I forget what I have already seen. Their pawn could be ready to take my queen, and I wouldn't even notice. To me, a chess board is a jumble, and worldly life is a chessboard (metaphor warning!).
Although oddly enough, I do not have this problem at all with hearing music. I guess the assimilation function involving music is part of the internal function of my brain. Go figure!

Did I answer you question?

I don't think that most people can assimilate what they see in a store.
There are too many things in their field of view.
They can only target what they are looking for or browse small sections in series.
After awhile, they can learn where different items are in the store.
If they go to different stores, they can apply their learned knowledge about previous stores to get general idea of where are the things that they are looking for.
I have good visual working memory and can hold many things in my mind at the same time and quickly switch between them and what I am doing with them in the physical world.
But I suck at planning things ahead and can't think ahead either.
As soon as I start doing, I know what to do, but I don't know what I am going to do before I start doing it.