Is self-diagnosis reliable?

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Most people with AS/HFA were diagnosed with Chronic Schizophrenia* in the past once they reached the age of 13 or so (before that they were just "problem children" if they had "bad" behaviour due to AS/HFA).

*As per some study I saw.

Anecdote: I was given OCD first (which I do have, but the AS/HFA was missed by a battery of psychos and psychics at a hospital).

Daniel, how old were you when you were diagnosed with AS?

I would correct that to say that a lot of people UNQUALIFIED to diagnose ADD is diagnosing other people as having ADD when they do not.

In the US, schools are quick to push kids (mostly boys) into the "ADD" category because they act up, but historically, boys need time to go out, play, be active, burn energy so they can be more composed in a classroom. Schools have phased out activities and letting boys "roughhouse" so at playtime and they can't stay still in class. The teacher slaps a label on the kid so they can justify demanding the parents put the kid on drugs to control his behavior when letting him play would be the better option.

Any psychological diagnosis should be made after other options are exhausted. Before slapping ADD on a kid (or AS), you have to eliminate other possible causes of the problem. A kid that may seem to have AS may be someone who is being left behind socially, and with some help will be NT because their social skills are ret*d and its not a neurological factor.

I can say I have AS with 95% certainty because I've spent 40 years trying to live as an NT and failing no matter what I try. I'm pretty sure I did not "miss out" on some key lesson as a child that makes me the way I am.

Last edited by zer0netgain on 09 Jun 2009, 7:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

If you ARE diagnosed, why not just say "My therapist THINKS I have it" (or whomever diagnosed you)

Afterall, it's not like you can take a blood test to see if you have it. So maybe you've been diagnosed with it, but you really don't have it.

Now tell me... doesn't what I just said feel invalidating?

Perhaps the question should be "Is a medical diagnosis reliable?"

25 for HFA and 26 for AS (both fit)

The former label was around when I was a little one (3 and under, and I was nonverbal at that time), and the latter was around when I was a little older (10 and verbal).

Being well behaved and doing well at school until the latter years is probably why I made it without a label (above all, an understanding parent), then I slowly floundered post-high school due to not growing up. Enter breakdown after years of failure at "life" and traumatic life events turning my routine upside down, all of which led to massive introspection, which led on to insight, which in turn led on to stumbling upon the AQ test after I successfully treated the OCD (see: the OCD ain't that bad anymore, how come I keep on failing at things I should easily be accomplishing with my cognitive ability?). Brought it up with the psychic I was seeing, 'I have an ASD,' says I, 'Yeah, I've always thought you had Asperger's.' Thanks doc for mentioning it. Early history gave me an AD label though, but that's the same thing really as I'm quite articulate as an adult (it's just that I lack social speech). That's how it went for me in condensed form.

I had an understanding parent, too. Until I was 15 anyway... then I moved from living with my mom to live with my dad and step mom who weren't as understanding and accepting as my mom was of my quirkiness and deficits.

Have you had many relationships with women? I can see from the pics of you over the last couple years that you're a good looking man, so I'm sure that has helped : )

One online (I'm ok with talking online). Couldn't/can't start anything in person, and I have doubts that anything could/can happen in person due to my deficits (but that's ok, I'm used to not living the "normal" life).

I had many people approach me for such in person during school/college (those poor, poor girls/women, doing everything they could via body language, and with me being clueless to it all). Looks haven't really helped, other than the aforementioned approaches [that went nowhere].

"A lack of social and emotional reciprocity", explains it in a single sentence.

you can not diagnose yourself with asperger syndrome.

if you have AS then you are autistic and you would have been realized to be different at about 3-6 months. in australia where health care is free, i was classified as autistic at abot 3 months old.

the degree of intellect you have available will determine the level of retardation of progress that you experience.

but that intellect is not available to you yet at 3 months old.
so at 3 months when you are suspected of having autism, they have no guage to how severe it will be.

i have been told by a moderator that not all countries share the same health care benefits as australia, and to not belittle peoples assessments of themselves because they have not the resources around them that would trap them when they are young.

i accept that but i do know that if you are autistic then you are so from birth.
my parents reported that i did not look at them with any intention and i looked at flies in preference to people.

in one test, doctors pretended to be surprised and they all pointed in a direction and they all looked there and i did not look where they pointed (i was told).

if no one (teachers or parents etc) ever suspected you were in need of assessment, then you most likely were not outstanding.

for someone to suddenly think they are autistic at such a late stage of their life is not a good bet i think.

autism is from birth and you would have been noticed intently by authorities very many times if you are autistic.

Last edited by b9 on 09 Jun 2009, 9:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

Me three.

I wasn't, except for a single psychiatrist when I was 24/25. I didn't speak till I was 4 1/2, and back then when I was taken to a doctor, it was, 'Boys learn to speak later than girls.' I'm in Australia too.

Lorna Wing writes in the book, "High-functioning individuals with Autism", that the severe end of HFA can be missed (see: Rain Man), so your statement is false (she supplies cases).

3 months? Maybe in the rare case. Most babies can't even track at 3 months. How in the world would they suspect that a baby is autistic at 3 months?

And apparently many are autistic at birth, but they suspect that not all are. It develops in some around 2 to 3 years. Some studies think this may have something to do with the rate at which the brain grows... though, really... who knows what that means? That may just be observational effect and not cause.

Not much was known about Autism before the last 10 to 15 years. Sure it was there, but not enough was known about it. And Asperger's wasn't added to the DSM until 1994. I was born in 1959, what does that tell you?

My teachers all made telltale observant remarks about me in school. In 2nd grade my teacher said about me "Odd combination of little girl and little old lady." From my kindergarten teacher "She cried the entire fall semester." From various teachers in elementary school "She is a daydreamer", "She isn't living up to her potential", "She is a follower, not a leader", "She is immature for her age", "Her mother is very permissive with her." A high school teacher told my dad and step mom that I appeared to be on drugs, which I was not. She told them I zone out all the time. True, I did. Still do. BTW all those remarks were in my school records. A counselor copied them for me and gave them to me a few years after I left school. I was shocked that such records were kept on kids! But I'm glad they were, as it's been very helpful to me to see what I was like back then.

The signs were there, but there wasn't a diagnosis to give me. And I would venture to guess that most of the people that self diagnose are over the age of 18. And another point I'd like to make is, remember, AS is a spectrum disorder so it's quite possible that a person could have it so mildly that they could go their entire lives without a diagnosis. The "severe" aspects could just be assumed by people that the person is "only" odd or quirky or very shy.

(Edited post to correct the spelling of one word)

Last edited by ChatBrat on 09 Jun 2009, 10:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

I am in Australia. Im 47, there was no diagnosis back then.



Because of depression I have been seeing two psychatrist for eight and two years respectively. During this time I talked incessently about the same topic for ten years which should have been a big hint. Recently I told the current one that "I think I have Asperger's". He is not the arrogant type that instantly dissmisses my ideas (self-diagnosis). After looking up the book, responded that I could likely be PDD-NOS with Asperger traits. Now PDD-NOS is autistic. So how much do you want to make this bet for?

yes i did not look at my parents or siblings with any interest. my mother wanted to love me but apparently i was not interested and i focussed on things that my mind locked on.

also i fell through their arms when they were holding me because i did not give proper resistance in my muscles to them holding me.

so things like that is why i was taken to see if i was sick.

then the doctor thought i may have autism because he could not attract my attention easily(i was told much by my psychiatrist when i was 12 about my infancy reports).

then a group of people did a "freak and point" test, and i did not look in the direction that they were looking in. that was a big measure in my initial diagnosis of autism.
also the fact that i did not ever have any emotional contact with my mother or my sisters was a major factor in my initial diagnosis.

there were very many other tests too that self diagnosed people would never have taken.

the "bullet point" aspects of asperger syndrome found in online descriptions are also relevant to many NT's, and many NT's see them selves described well by those criteria, but the reality of autism is something that is peculiar only to autistics. it is not able to be pretended and i can see that fact so easily. there is a quality of autism that cannever be described to a non autistic. i think a large number of people here are not autistic but think they are.

whatever. i can not be bothered to continue. you are all 10,000 miles or more away, and i think i will have made some enemies with this post so far..

I see what you are saying, but I frankly disagree.

If you have AS and the effects are pronounced enough, yes, it is obvious, but here in the USA, AS wasn't even recognized as a disorder until 1994. People in history with AS were seen as "odd" and "socially awkward." The "ret*d" effect many "autistic" people are stereotypically believed to display is not so with a large number of people who do suffer from AS. You can have problems with eye contact and it be written off as shyness or low self-esteem here in America. If you grew up being the victim of bullying and teasing for not fitting in (as I did), many would write off AS symptoms as being any number of things...even if they know of AS.

That's the tragedy of having AS and being mildly afflicted with it. You're functional enough that your AS symptoms are dismissed as something else and unless someone familiar with AS tells you otherwise, you struggle to fit in, but keep failing because you don't understand what you are really up against.