Do I have aspergers?
Hi, i'm a 16 year old male from England and was looking up aspergers syndrome for a school project 3 days ago and realised how i have many of the symptoms but not all, i wanted to try here first as i don't really want to go to the doctor saying that the internet says i have this when it could just be a part of my personality.
When i was very young whilst everyone else would be outside playing with each other, i would just sit in the corner and read. Now in my teens i struggle to keep eye contact whilst talking to people and feel very awkward whilst talking to people. I also speak with a monotonal voice and when i was young i had to see a speech theripist as i had a "lazy tounge" and even now it is sometimes noticeable. Im also quite clumsy (a website also said something about having a odd posture, does walking flat footed count?) im also constantly fiddiling with things such as twirling a pen round my fingers, I also have bad handwriting and sometimes jumble the letters round whilst writing or typeing. People also have called me blunt or rude even when i didn't mean to be.
Whilst browsing through this site i read mentions of a 200 question quiz to roughly say if you have aspergers or not and got a "aspie score" of 163/ 200 and was "very likely an aspie" however I'm not sure if the website is realible. There may be other things i forgot to mention or might not realise could be symptoms. Any comments would be appreaciated as i am really not sure what to do.
Many thanks.
"Very likely" with this test is probably about a chance of one in five, or thereabouts. (Most such tests will actually bring up more false-positives than actual cases of autism, because autism is relatively rare compared to the typical.) One in five is, of course, more than the one in a hundred chance in the general population (twenty times as likely, in fact) but it is not diagnostic. Tests like this can serve as a decent screening to decide whether or not you should consider having it checked out, since despite the high false-positive rate, the good ones tend to catch most cases of autism.
You do mention some autistic traits. Namely: Lack of eye contact; monotone voice; odd posture; no friendships with same-age peers; possibly some social skills impairment. The clumsiness and messy handwriting are not in the official criteria for Asperger's, but some professionals note that these are found more often on the spectrum.
Here's my advice. Ask yourself: Do these traits cause trouble for me, or for anyone around me? Can I work with them? And if I can, will it take a huge amount of effort to do so? Do I need help with anything in my life right now where a diagnosis might allow me access? If they are troublesome for you or hurtful to others, if you need accommodations, or if you are using such a lot of energy to cope with them that you haven't got time for anything else, then I would recommend talking to your family doctor and getting a referral. If not, there's nothing particularly wrong with identifying as "spectrum cousin" or "person with autistic traits" and learning more about autism, even if you are not, technically, diagnosable. (I'm willing to bet that if you aren't, you might have been as a young child.) It's usually helpful to learn more about yourself; and if you have autistic traits, learning about autism is kind of a no-brainer.
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jocundthelilac
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Dyspraxia, actually. Dyslexia's a problem with reading; dyspraxia is poor motor skills.
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Thanks, I knew no one on here could properly diagnose me but i just wanted to know if it was likely and if so, what to do next. I've realised now that if i have got aspergers, ive had it before i knew or suspected i had it so theres no reason to do anything majorly about it. So again many thanks!