Is Asperger's often confused with a personality disorder?

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Yeah there is absolutely no connection between autism and antisocial pd (which is the current psychiatric term for sociopathy). The only way they can be confused is if you hear the two different usages of lacking empathy and assume they are the same. They have been studies and when autistic people understand a social situation where someone does something wrong we care about right and wrong whereas sociopaths do not.

Of course it is possible for someone to be both but there is no connection between the two. Not all autistic people tell the truth all the time and follow rules even when we are not sociopaths. Those are stereotypes but they are not true of all of us and it is perfectly possible for an autistic person to lack a conscience and therefore do all those awful things that get you labeled antisocial PD. Just as it's possible for autistic people to have all the traits that get you labeled borderline even if they look different from a nonautistic person with the same diagnosis.

Whether it's a correct diagnosis or a mis-diagnosis, I think it's unfortunate if they diagnosis someone with BPD and then stop looking and miss an autistic disorder (or ADHD, or bi-polar). I think neurological differences do contribute to BPD for some with BPD. Being different and not knowing how to deal with that and not having role models like oneself is plenty traumatic, and BPD appears to be related to chronic trauma (including abuse).

I think the only confusion would be (and i've seen both):

1. A sociopath misdiagnosed as autistic finds their traits mentioned in ASPD. M

2. An autistic person totally misunderstands the meaning of the words used for ASPD.

Like antisocial. It doesn't mean not liking to socialize or not liking people. It means going against the bare minimum rules that allow a society to function. Not social skills. Things like "killing is wrong" and "don't torture people or animals for fun" and all that sort of stuff.

And empathy. Autistic people don't necessarily lack empathy in either sense but when it's said of us it means lacking the ability to understand nonautistic people. When sociopaths lack empathy it means not giving a crap about hurting or even killing people, there's no remorse because sociopaths lack a conscience telling them it's wrong to hurt or kill people.

When they talk about sociopaths having disregard of social rules and norms it's the ones like killing people is wrong. And when they disregard them it's not because they don't understand but because they're not capable of caring.

When they stick to themselves it's not because of social skills or even because of being an ordinary loner. It's for a lot of reasons most of which stem from being really twisted people who simply find it easier to do what they do without someone around. But they are not above dating or marrying for sex or for camouflage and most of them are fully capable of charming a lover. In fact I have known sociopaths who seem to specialize in finding ways of appearing attractive to partners to get lots and lots of sex (they don't know anything about love).

I have known sociopaths. Unless they are also autistic they bear zero resemblance to autistic people. I've heard of autistics being misdiagnosed that way but it's very rare and often the result of other things (like a woman I know whose OCD makes her punish herself by breaking windows and they don't get why she really does it, and another autistic woman who went through an extreme rebellious phase and got in trouble with the law).

But real sociopaths autistic or not are the last people you want to know. A lot of them take great pleasure in hurting people. Even if they're not serial killers like the stereotype they will make your life a living hell. They can be very charming and manipulative and can convince other people to do their dirty work for them. Many of them have a seeming sixth sense for spotting anything good in the world, like love, friendships, anything good or pleasant, and deriving sick pleasure from figuring out how to destroy it. Nonsociopathic autistics are nothing at all like that. These are not people you ever want to meet.

I suppose that many people, when they hear "AntiSocial Personality Disorder", they think in something like Schizoid PD (and when they hear "Schizoid Personality Disorder", they think in Dissociative Identity Disorder).

Wouldn't the presence of these characteristics in early childhood preclude a personality disorder diagnosis?
I'm thinking mainly of Schizoid and Avoidant.

It definitely happens. I was originally diagnosed as bi-polar when I had just turned 16.

This is a really interesting question and I have been wondering the same thing. I have been having assessment and seeing psephologists since i was 7 years old. The first thing i was defiantly diagnosed with was Dyslexia (and this is the only one I have had confirmed as an adult). During my first ever abasement it was suggested I shared behavioral traits that are assisted with Asperger's syndrome, but since then Aspergers was never mentioned and every psephologist said something different.
I was also diagnosed with childhood:
Avoidant disorder
Generalized social anxiety disorder
Attachment disorder
Compulsive behaviors
Behavioral inhbitation (what ever that means

And since then I suspect I possibly also have traits of an eating disorder and torrent syndrome.

What I've been thinking is, I shortly can't possibly have all those things? can I? is it possibly that it's all just Asperger's and that Aspergers shares traits that are also associate's with all those other disorders.

Would this fit in with being misdiagnosed? This is a very interesting thread and I was just curious if OCPD could actually be Aspergers or if you could have both. Thanks.