What do we all have in common?

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Im starting to notice almost every topic about a specific AS trait has a person or people saying 'i dont have this one'

The only connection i can see is "we all suck at social stuff" in fact thats how AS is described. Ive heard people say "Hey I have AS that means im bad socially". Yes, but WHY? Do you even know? Does ANYONE know? What about someone who has extreme social anxiety? Does this mean they have AS? No. Not in itself. Youd more have to look at the causes of the anxiety. But what are they in AS?

Isnt AS all about narrow obsessions and inability to read people? Ive noticed a hell of a lot of people here who have no problem with either of those things.
Or is it all about executive dysfunction and distractability? No, thats ADHD.
Is it about being organised? No, thats just people. That what people do. Its normal.
Organised to abnormal levels? Nope thats more OCD.
Is it a lack of empathy? Everyone with the condition is quick to deny this charge.
Lack of displayed empathy? People with AS know how to act, they just feel uncomfortable doing it. Thats just social anxiety which isnt necessarily related.
Poor emotional control? Many people suffer from frustration. Its all about having and not having things. Of course people with no social life are gonna get upset.
Poor understanding of social rules? Possibly. But why? These obviously arent inbuilt in normal people either, cos of the social differences between culture and generation. They are taught and learned. Anyone with AS will tell you that the social rules all make sense so whats the problem?
Sensory issues? Ok ill concede this is fairly common but again, many people dont have a noticeable problem with them.
Hearing issues? CAPD can exist as a separate and unrelated disorder. Ive read studies that put kids with some kind of CAPD as high as 5%. WAY above the ~.5% that have AS
Language difficulties? (like taking things literally) Again, many many people with AS dont do this.

I can see why some experts say it doesnt exist. Some say its more of a pattern of behaviours, some related and some not, that have been stuck with a label. If you have enough of them for whatever reason, you get the label. There seems (to me at least) to be no underlying cause for this unlike other disorders.

Maybe someone can help me here, Im very confused right now.

we all breathe. That is what we have in common. That and if you are on this forum we all read English. That means we were taught or taught ourselves, either way that demonstrates we can learn. We have that in common. We can type on a keyboard, and express ourselves that way. oh, and we all have an opinion, which means we can think. (whether we think for ourselves or not is optional) We all have a lot in common.

I was more meaning what do people with AS all have in common, but yeah I guess you're right about what the humans all have in common

Yup we are common in a way that we're socially not so adept as others, but we have hearts man.

that was what I was going for, Johnny. Our humanity embraces us and for all our issues, we are still of the human race.

I agree with you.

You're right on this! The social one is probably the biggest connection. Only, there are some here who are fine with social stuff too, and have a problem elsewhere.


That's a good poimt, I agree to an extent. I personally find that upsetting, also I can always link any unhappiness directly to external causes. There is not some mysterious unknown brain processing going on mis-translating positive- feedback as zero- or negative- feedback. There really is a lack of long-term positive feedback. The main problem may be not being able to get that feeling of self-worth from social situations, something that for most people is intuitive and achieved with little conscious effort.

However, as you say we are all different and there are others those who don't seem to get upset by being isolated all the time and those who are fighting off all the well-meaning friends.


Maybe not, that's probably the one thing we all have in common: NONE of us think that the social rules make sense!


Yes, I think it is a 'pattern of behaviours' rather than a specific disorder. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It is still very early in the study of it. I'm fairly sure that over the next 10 or 20 years, the pattern of behaviours that are today labelled Autism, HFA and Aspergers, will be divided up differently and have some new labels added and removed. This seems to be the norm with psychiatry in general.

Part of the confusion is the 'spectrum' aspect. That some of us *are* very similar. The "me too!" phenomena we see, where something that you thought unique to you, is shared with others with AS. It's a rare moment in life (well, it is for me), to have felt the genuine connection I've felt with some people here. Yet then, as we move along the spectrum, differences become more evident and there are people who are possibly more different to me than many NT's. It is very confusing and highlights the incompleteness of the current state of knowledge on the subject.

This can also be viewed from the point of ANY sub-group within a larger group.
Any smaller groups will have preferences and difficulties that others in the sub group do not.

We are all going to be only human. I think the hardest part about explaining Asperger's to NTs is the fact that is no common theme besides the social issues, but those can be mild.
I can't tell you the number of times I've had to explain to someone that I'm not the Rain Man or any other stereotypes associated with AS. I am me. I have Asperger's. My Asperger's is not going to be like your Asperger's and it frustrates folks because there is no simple category.

I do know reading these forums feels more comfortable than anything else I've been a part of, so maybe there's something more here. Forgiveness for how we are? Acceptance for having difficulties? I like it ^_^

By my logic, we all have something in common or we wouldn't all be autistic. From a neurological viewpoint we don't yet know what that something is.

From a behavioral perspective, I suspect, as the OP suggests, that some sort of social deficit/difference is common to all autists. Are there any autists here who believe they have no social deficits/differences? I am unsure if some degree of sensory issues and repetitive behavior are universal as well, perhaps not.

Yes - this, exactly.

JohnnyD017 - AS is comprised of a spectrum of characteristics - so there may be few common characteristics between any two people with AS, aside from our humanity. Even with a characteristic such as "social impairment" - the way I am impaired might be different from the way another person with AS is impaired.

Part of the deal, is whether you possess enough of the characteristics to place you on the spectrum - but the other part is how much you might be impaired by those characteristics. If I have a characteristic, but am not impaired by it, that characteristic tends to be disregarded in the diagnostic process. It's the relative levels of impairment that lead to diagnoses other than AS.

(There's a proposal to go to a single Autistic Spectrum Disorder diagnosis in 2010, which may or may not make things less confusing.)

Oh glad to hear we're all ASD...

Sorry, i thought you might have been joking and i wanted to make sure Afterall i did mention something about 'literal interpretations' in my post!!




Speaking for myself, i did not believe i was severely different from anyone else until my own diagnosis at 14. Afterwards is when the extreme self doubt surfaced and i have no idea who i was. What bothers me is that i was diagnosed as "moderate to severe" yet i cant seem to identify with many of the things people talk about here and i dont seem to possess many of the stereotype difficulties and it looks like others are in the same boat. What also bothers me that a very large amount of the supposed AS 'traits' are simply a part of social anxiety/phobia.

If you look at things like OCD and ADHD everyone with them is the same in a few ways and they are distinctive. AS is strange as its main characteristics are pretty much the same as another disorder's (social phobia). Yes, maybe the new criteria will clear things up!




Hmm, some of them might not make total sense, even normal people will admit to that. (watch Seinfeld!) But we can at least understand why they might be rules when looking at from other people's point of view, right??

No, the similarties between social phobia/anxiety and ASD is just difficulties in social situations. Social anxiety/phobia by definition stem from low self esteem generated by fear of being judged or embarassed. ASD social difficulties stem from lack of understanding in a social situation, whether it's something such as no eye contact, unable to understand sarcasm, idioms, figurative speech, facial expressions and body language. However, those on the ASD can easily develop social anxiety/phobia because of the lack of understanding. I developed it myself.

And you most definitely won't ever hear me say I understand societys' rules. Because I can't. They're illogical and completely irrational.

Why the hell do women wear high heels? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It hurts the feet, hurts the ankles, hurts the back, kills balance becoming dangerous in some situations. Yet it is common and expected. Why?

Why does this guy at my work always act overbearing, insulting, overly friendly and abrasive do it all with a straight face? I have absolutely no idea when this guy is serious or not, yet everyone else has no trouble. Why?

Why do people kill other people over what can only be logically explained as a fairy tale? Refering to religion. It makes no logical or rational sense. Yet humans do it. Why?

Why are women socially ostracized for having sex with various people yet men are praised for it? Double standard much?

Society makes little to no sense most of the time. Even NT's realize this in some cases. They still go along with them, but they'll complain about them at least.

Well, it all goes back to diagnostic criteria. We are here because we have AS and we have AS because we match diagnostic criteria. The DSM is tricky because it says x number of these traits and y number of those traits and that's where you get folks who do or don't have almost any trait.

I like to go back to Lorna Wing's "triad of impairments" as a fundamental. If you have AS, you have (to some degree) the triad. These are social deficits, repetitive behaviors (included here are perseverations, obsessions, stims, etc.), and communication difficulties.

Here's a picture to illustrate:
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/file.php/35 ... 1_001i.jpg

The little pictures in each wedge are not what each person *must* exhibit, but just examples of what each wedge means.

So . . .what we all have in common? communication and social deficits and repetitive behaviors. *HOW* those three things manifest in each of our individual lives can look VERY different from person to person.

Sparrow

I think Sparrowrose has his the nail on the head.

We (who are diagnosed) share the diagnostic criteria. Each of the criteria may manifest in different ways, and to different degrees, but ultimately, if you are diagnosed with AS, you present some form of social impairment, some form of communication deficit and some form of behavioural difference.

But because each of us has had different opportunities to make adjustments, we have had different opportunities to deal with our deficits.

For my part, I participated in children's theatre, and have been committed to performing arts for a long time. Accordingly, I have learned a lot of control over my instrument (both vocally, and physically). These learned skills allow me to present as very NT. But those have in no way altered some of my other deficits, or my social impairment.

Well, thanks to the inclusion of atypical autism in the spectrum, I think it's safe to say that there is no one thing that we all have in common.

Take three PDD-NOS cases:
1. Normal eye contact and nonverbal communication; stereotypies, non-verbal.
2. Social skills delay; developed speech on time; extreme special interests.
3. Difficulty with verbal and non-verbal communication. No stereotypies.

You'd probably say autism for all three and you'd be right, but each one is missing one feature that the other two have, and all three would be atypical autism.

And it's not like atypical autism is on the fringes of the spectrum. It actually makes up over half of autism cases.

I guess you could make a case for "some kind of communication difficulty", but since that could be anything from not getting figures of speech to not looking where people point; and since there are about a million other disorders that create communication difficulty, it's not exclusive to autism.