Mild AS

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I haven't read the majority of this thread, so forgive me if I'm repeating someone else.

I don't think there's "mild" AS. Because it is a spectrum, you will have people who are higher functioning than others, so it'd be accurate to say that that some people have milder symptoms.

If you're not impaired in some way by the condition, you really shouldn't have the gianosis.

How do you explain all the people who say "I am so mild, people can't even tell I have AS" while others say "My AS is pretty obvious to all who meet me". I've read comments by NTs saying they have "autistic moments" themselves and cannot understand what the big deal is. It all points to the conclusion...maybe everyone is a little autistic.

You explain the first by pointing out the varying range both in the spectrum and people's knowledge of it. What appears to be a temper tantrum to one person could be seen as a meltdown to another. I remember an AS boy in my English class having a meltdown a few years ago, and no one else knew what it was. He was pretty high functioning, considering, but it was obvious to people who knew what to look for. So it all depends.

As for "autistic moments", no, they don't. I will never have an "NT moment" because I'm not neurotypical. Even on the best of days, I won't be able to read body language or hold a "normal" conversation. Even on their worst days, they won't be able to able to understand the pain of eye contact or hypersensitivity, especially if they "cannot understand what the big deal is". It's a nice little catch phrase, but it's not correct.

YES, you do have NT moments, so do I, so does everyone! It's because we aren't that different from one another and we tend to overemphasis the small differences we have until they become overmagnified. I have noticed while reading the posts on WP, every post I have read is a mixture of NT and autistic.
I also don't have the same philosophy toward tantrums. People tend to divide tantrum and meltdown into two different catagories but I think they are both caused by the same thing. They are caused by overstimulation, tiredness, malais, the CNS is overloaded and coping in this way. Some people believe the tantrum is a clever manipulation tactic but I don't believe that's true. I think it's the CNS being overloaded and the results are the same in autistic and NT, both.

Um, no, I don't. I have moments where I'm more comfortable with being social, and I have moments where I can figure out hey, that person is glaring daggers, he/she probably isn't too happy. I never have moments where I'm completely comfortable being social, and I never have been and never will be able to identify finer points of body language. I can take numbing medication until I can't feel anything, but I still don't know how eye contact works, and I still feel lost without stimming.

I think you're confusing being human with being on the spectrum or not. Of course everyone is going to have similarities, because we're of the same species. But (and since I've all ready used a similar comparsion today, I'll stick with it) you can have similarities with a blind person, and that doesn't mean you're blind. Maybe you both like rice and you both feel warmer in the summer and you both like swimming. You're not different there, but they're still blind and you're still not.

I can agree that some tantrums are because of overstimulation, etc. However, some are thrown to manipulate; they didn't get something they wanted, and throwing a tantrum gets it for them. I've seen kids (on and off the spectrum) do it.

Your moments feeling more comfort while socializing could be interpreted as "NT moments" .
Do any of us really know if everyone is completely comfortable being social 100% of the time?
I admit eye contact is something I don't do well, either, but there are people with AS who are completely comfortable with it. I don't happen to be one of them. How do you explain the people with AS who don't have a problem with it. All these inconsistencies must mean something...


I can have "blind moments". If I put something over my eyes for a period of time, I could figure out, somewhat, what it's like to lose my eyesight. What about my blindspots? Or not being able to see a car when it's in a certain position, in my mirrors? Perhaps, those moments are the ones I share with people who have lost their eyesight? Do any of us truly know everything there is to know? Do we have access to all information at all times?


But, that isn't really a "true" tantrum. That's just an act to get someone what they want. "Acting" is something many people do equally well.
Which, also illustrates my point and suggests that, just maybe, everyone is on the spectrum.

Hey, even I can sometimes make eye contact with characters on movie screens, and I pretty much freeze up if I accidentally make it in real life. I studiously look past people's heads nowadays, and it seems to be adequate to notify them that I am in fact paying attention.

My moments of more comfort means I'm not shaking and they're not asking if I'm going to faint. Pretty far from normal.

I don't think that anyone is 100% comfortable with social contact all the time. However, brief moments of being less comfortable is not the same as having a disorder.

Eye contact is an example. It's a spectrum, and you have to have issues in functioning in order to get the dx, so substitute eye contact for a need for a rigid schedule or something similar.



You can fake blindness, sure. With blindspots, you can easily correct that by moving your head. And with blindfolds you're closer, but you've still got a huge advantage over someone who was born blind, because you know what colors look like, and you can take off the blindfold whenever you want, so you'll never know what it's truly like. And with the exception of a small blindspot that every human has, you have to go out of your way to fake that blindness; it doesn't mean you're partially blind or anything like that. You're asking people to understand something that they cannot.



Throwing a tantrum to get something is still a tantrum.

And I have absolutely no idea how the last sentence pertains. Tantrums are frequently thrown by children who have not yet matured in the brain. A meltdown in a person on the autism spectrum does not stop when your brain matures.

Aren't these statements contradictory?

I really can't see why there is a big debate about whether 'mild' AS exists. If Asperger's is a mild form of Autism, then it stands to reason that Autism can be broken down into even more milder forms (almost infinitly). They aren't going to come up with an infinit number of new terms to diagnose each level of Autism, that would be impossible and pointless. No two Autistic people are equal. Some are severely autistic and cannot even live by themselves, and others have such mild symptoms that they barely even register as being Autistic. I seem to be more toward the latter (milder) end of the scale.

I think you are either on the autistic spectrum, or you are not.

I have been diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum & having Asperger's Syndrome. But I did not find this out until I had been living on my own & successfully employed for almost thirty years. What led me to seek the diagnosis was the fact that I have no close friends, have extreme difficulty making friends or socializing, and have not had a romantic relationship since I was in school (almost thirty years ago.)

Due to AS, I am significantly impaired, socially. But according to my psychologist, I am not as impaired as some of his patients with AS.

Now it could be that because I am also gifted with skills in several areas (music, writing, computers, etc.) I have always been able to find work, despite being impaired by AS. I don't know - I can't go back in time to not study music, not do well in school, not be interested in computers, etc.

While studying music, I learned to present myself as a performer in front of an audience. In the Army, I learned how to handle myself in formal social situations (such as interviews.) These skills have doubtless made it possible for me to hold a job & get along with my coworkers (even though they don't help in making friends with coworkers.)

I have met other Aspies who don't have the same skills as I have, but at the same time, don't seem to be as socially impaired as I am. Some have even greater skills, but are more socially impaired. Others have much greater sensory issues than I.

To me, the fact that I can hold a good job & live on my own makes me less impaired than those with AS who can't do those things. So in that respect, my AS is "mild" as compared with theirs.

But when I am faced with an informal social situation, I don't view my impairment as "mild."

The temptation is to view the autistic spectrum as a line - when in reality, it appears to be multi-dimensional.

They could change over time in autistics and NTs. The root cause could be connected and supports my theory that everyone could be, at the least, slightly autistic. My meltdowns have changed considerably and are better now than they once were. These are distinct from the acts one puts on to get one's way.
I am not sure if everyone outgrows them, they just change and manifest in different ways, while with some, they might not change over time much at all. We have to look at it realistically and think about how each one is intrepreted and why they are sometimes tolerated and sometimes not.

I cannot correct the inaccuracy in the poster's comment without mentioning or alluding to such things as PDD-NOS and BAP. It is clearly incorrect to state that there is no grey area between AS and normal, and, in addition, the grey area (e.g., see prevalence figures for PDD-NOS) makes up the largest percentage of ASDs.

Autistic traits blend into the subclinical and normality; this is the current view in the field. ASD diagnostic distinctions currently cannot be validly separated into essentially different conditions: A 2008 Review (Witwer, J Autism Dev Disord (2008) 38:1611–1624) of the research literature concludes that there is little support for current distinctions between ASD subgroups.

This is all completely relevant to there being no "on switch".

Apparently activity in this part of the brain different looking and much lower in autists than in NTs.

This is mild AS (per the women who defined AS as it is today):




Run-of-the-mill AS is the Active and Odd subgroup (severe AS shades into HFA with the Passive Subgroup).

I think it makes more sense to claim that certain symptoms are mild than to say whether the AS itself is mild. It seems to me that AS/HFA/PDD-NOS can be divided into categories based on which symptoms are the most disabling. The main division I see is between the neurotic aspies with lots of co-morbid issues (like me) and the ones whose more disabling issues are limited to the social arena.