"NT with autistic tendencies"

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What does this mean to you? What separates "NT with autistic traits" from "high functioning autie"? Where is the line, really?

I saw this phrase and it piqued my interest. Mainly because I think I might be one. My son has Asperger's and as I have read about a hundred books about it (fixation? lol!) I see so many things that were true of me as a child. Fewer are true of me now, but I see them in my husband too. I guess we are the perfect genetic mix to produce those tendencies. We have 4 kids and only one hasn't shown any traits yet, but he's only a year old, so only time will tell...

I think it means an NT with aspie traits but they don't have enough to be on the spectrum. If it impairs them though, then it's obvious they probably aren't NTs then and they are probably on the spectrum so it might be PDD-NOS.


If lot of it fits you as a kid, then you are probably not NT then. You have just learned to cope is all.

I was first diagnosed NT with aspie traits and non-verbal learning disability. Then, another psychiatrist dug deeper, asking for baby book records and interviews by family. He diagnosed HFA.

Then, a vocational counselor diagnosed me with Asperger's. Then, a neuropsych center also diagnosed AS. I moved to Oregon and found out my AS is moderate to severe (through a functional assessment) but I don't know how low it is, since I haven't seen my report yet.

I guess the moral is: More information helps for a more in depth analysis, and we are not all what we appear to be on the surface at a first assessment.

A person can have all of the so-called traits of autism or aspergers and not actually 'have' the condition is weird as that sounds. Autism and Aspergers as an extension of the HFA end of the spectrum are developmental conditions not personality conditions which have separate causes.

^ In theory. It cannot be proven.

That is, basically, how I see myself.

My son is AS, and during the diagnosis process I did a lot of reading. I remember most an article that had been in Wired magazine, talking about the genetic theory, and how multiple genes are most likely involved. So, someone like me has a few, and marries someone else who has a few, and the result may be a child who now has more than a few of the genes, and is far more clearly on the spectrum.

I'm sure the line is totally gray, and possibly a moving target as well.

At this point in my life it doesn't really matter. I am who I am and I'm comfortable in my own skin. I am totally convinced my son is AS, and my husband is likely AS, as well ... at least, more AS than I am ... and understanding this about both of them has helped with family life. In the end, to me, it's all about what the label gets you - or doesn't.

The line between diagnosing and not is when there is significant impairment. That means that some neurologically autistic or Asperger's people are not diagnosable, officially, because they have improved their weaknesses to the point of low-normal. It also means that a "near-ASD" neurotypical may have a lot more in common with officially diagnosed autistics than they have with the mainstream NT.

The line is definitely fuzzy. "Significant" is in the eye of the beholder.

To me, it means the person saying or writing that has a view of a person being either autistic or not, and labels anyone who doesn't fit one of the autistic spectrum diagnosis as NT, even if they have autistic traits.

I understand as referring to the sort of person I would describe as partially autistic. Someone like me. Though I'm certainly not NT. Yet, I can see someone else thinking of me as NT.


It's like... a simplified continuum...

Austistic....... Autistic traits.... no autstic traits.....

The person saying "NT with autistic tendencies" would include the middle with NT, and they are describing the middle. Me, I'd include only the "no autistic traits" as NT, and so "NT with autistic traits" is a description I'd never use.

I believe my mother to be neurotypical with Asperger's traits. My father also exhibits some traits as well. So does my older brother, and to an extent my younger brother. I believe this is where I get it from.

I fluctuate in how I see myself, and it depends a fair bit on whether I've had a good day - one when I seem to have been able to connect with people - but this phrase also chimes with me.

Looking back to my childhood I think it's quite likely I would have been considered for diagnosis as AS/HFA if there had been the understanding then that there is now. Likewise my dad, and even more clearly my cousin. But I think that forty-odd years of adapting means that now, though I tick the DSM criteria (because these things don't "go away"), I get by sufficiently well that as Callista says I may or may not be considered to have "significant impairment" depending on who is thinking about it.

For instance, is it significant impairment that although I'm pretty good at what I do (better than many who have been promoted over my head over the years anyway) my career effectively reached a plateau in my early thirties: future advancement depends on marketing and other people skills that I don't have and now accept I won't ever be able to acquire. Some would say that is a signficant impairment, but as I do nevertheless have a fairly interesting job which pays OK this puts me in a pretty good place compared to many other people, whether they are autistic or not.

I don't know how to make or keep friends, and after this many years I'm clearly never going to learn. So that means I know plenty of people at work, but none of them socially, and I'm not in touch with anyone from school, from college, from places where I've ever lived or worked in the past or anything. I know that for some people that would be a significant issue. Happily, for me it isn't.

I think in fact it doesn't matter to me what I am. Finding out about AS has been an absolute revelation. It explains me to myself so much better than anything ever has before, and that's enough for me. I think of myself as being either AS or in some way sufficiently "AS-ish" that what people say on WP makes sense to me, and the advice that people share here on coping with some of the difficulties of being on the spectrum is proving really helpful to me.

Maybe that is where the line is, between really being more NT than not, and really being AS. While I can understand what people talk about here, because I can usually see it in some family member, the number of issues I can relate to myself, from my own life, are much smaller. I don't feel like I think like most of the people here, although I do really enjoy reading it. It's all really, really helped me relate to my truly AS child much, much better. And, yet, strictly speaking, I do have an AS trait or two. Totally, "NT with some autistic traits."

I am starting to think that criteria for ASD is way too broad.

I think that it is too broad and I am afraid the spectrum is more than just a full-blown disorder, it can also include anyone who are undiagnosed that have traits of ASD.

In reality, being neurotypical means that you are not never diagnosed and never diagnosed until you get diagnosed one way or another.

I think we really should stop calling anyone NT, just because they don’t have diagnosis of ASD or any mental health and developmental disorders for that matter, because we may never know if they have the same or similar issues as us, but were not diagnosed at the time, or they suffered like us, but they were never diagnosed for the rest of their lives

There are also reports or stories that some lose their ASD diagnosis as they get older, just because they got improved, even though some forget that ASD is a developmental disorder ( especially milder forms of ASD ) and a developmental disorder is something you have for the rest of your life.


Even my brother's friend said he was diagnosed with Autism, but he thinks it is stupid, because from his perspective, it never caused him any distress in daily life, but his doctors thought otherwise.

Developmental disorders comprise a group of psychiatric conditions originating in childhood that involve serious impairment in different areas. There are several ways of using this term.

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The most narrow concept is used in the category "Specific Disorders of Psychological Development" in the ICD-10.

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These disorders comprise developmental language disorder, learning disorders, motor disorders, and autism spectrum disorders.

[2]

In broader definitions ADHD is included, and the term used is neurodevelopmental disorders.

[1]

Yet others include antisocial behavior and schizophrenia that begins in childhood and continues through life.

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However, these two latter conditions are not as stable as the other developmental disorders, and there is not the same evidence of a shared genetic liability.

[1]

Developmental disorders are present from early life. Most improve as the child grows older, but some entail impairments that continue throughout life. There is a strong genetic component; more males are afflicted than females.

[1]

This is just an example, but it’s not accurate.

Females should get the same treatments and therapies just like men get.

Should we change the criteria for Autism Spectrum disorder? In order to have diagnosis of ASD you need to have traits of part of ASD for four months, after 12 months of age and if traits are gone after more four months you are developmentally delayed.

In order to qualify for diagnosis of Pervasive Developmental Disorder, symptoms must be present for four months right before the age of one.

Autism can be diagnosed at age through 0-3 years of age, but moderate to milder form of Autism can be diagnosed at the age of 4+

According to Wikipedia a chronic condition is a health condition or disease that is persistent or otherwise long-lasting in its effects or a disease that comes with time. The term chronic is often applied when the course of the disease lasts for more than three months.

Even if symptoms of Autism is gone, you are still considered to have history of developmental delay, because the traits of ASD lasted for more than three months

Symptoms of ASD for four months before the age of one:

1. Not respond to their name by 12 months of age
2. Not point at objects to show interest (point at an airplane flying over) by 14 months
3. Not play “pretend” games (pretend to “feed” a doll) by 18 months
4. Avoid eye contact and want to be alone
5. Have trouble understanding other people’s feelings or talking about their own feelings
6. Have delayed speech and language skills
7. Repeat words or phrases over and over (echolalia)
8. Give unrelated answers to questions
9. Get upset by minor changes
10. Have obsessive interests
11. Flap their hands, rock their body, or spin in circles
12. Have unusual reactions to the way things sound, smell, taste, look, or feel
13. Does not respond to name by 12 months of age
14. Avoids eye-contact
15. Prefers to play alone
16. Does not share interests with others
17. Only interacts to achieve a desired goal
18. Has flat or inappropriate facial expressions
19. Does not understand personal space boundaries
20. Avoids or resists physical contact
21. Is not comforted by others during distress
22. Delayed speech and language skills
23. Repeats words or phrases over and over (echolalia)
24. Reverses pronouns (e.g., says “you” instead of “I”)
25. Gives unrelated answers to questions
26. Does not point or respond to pointing
27. Uses few or no gestures (e.g., does not wave goodbye)
28. Talks in a flat, robot-like, or sing-song voice
29. Does not pretend in play (e.g., does not pretend to “feed” a doll)
30. Does not understand jokes, sarcasm, or teasing
31. Lines up toys or other objects
32. Plays with toys the same way every time
33. Likes parts of objects (e.g., wheels)
34. Is very organized
35. Gets upset by minor changes
36. Has obsessive interests
37. Has to follow certain routines
38. Flaps hands, rocks body, or spins self in circles
39. Hyperactivity (very active)
40. Impulsivity (acting without thinking)
41. Short attention span
42. Aggression
43. Causing self injury
44. Temper tantrums
45. Unusual eating and sleeping habits
46. Unusual mood or emotional reactions
47. Lack of fear or more fear than expected
48. Unusual reactions to the way things sound, smell, taste, look, or feel

It’s to make it even more broad and most with Broad Autism Phenotype should have some form of ASD diagnosis, because Autism is a spectrum developmental disorder from very severe to very mild.

The reason why I said this, is because the term broad autism phenotype describes an even wider range of individuals who exhibit problems with personality, language, and social-behavioral characteristics at a level that is considered to be higher than average but lower than is diagnosable with autism.

Even if you slightly had some problems with personality, language, and social-behavioral characteristics from early to late childhood, early to late adolescence and adulthood, I would still consider you to have history of developmental delay, regardless if it is diagnosed or not and also, because the DSM changed all subgroups of Autisms into a spectrum disorder, from very severe to very mild.

The first is not a diagnosis. The second is more of a diagnosis, but the "high functioning" part is level 1.

In the US, the DSM-5 defines what it means to have level 1 ASD. And that is it really.

I am level 1 ASD, but what it means is that it explains my behavior and my relationship to the rest of the world. I would be unsure what "NT with autistic traits" means.

I think it's whether someone has been diagnosed autistic or not.

My stepdad has a more autistic personality than I do (and sometimes we clash over that tbh) but he was young in a different era & 'got by' despite being eccentric so he was never diagnosed.

He has less sensory sensitivities but when it comes to taste, it was very interesting that when we were struggling re food all of a sudden his sensitivities started coming up, exposing the fact that most of the time we just eat food he likes...

Same with touch sensitivity. He will find a 'reason' not to touch gooey stuff rather than admit that he doesn't like touching gooey stuff but every time it's an issue is with gooey stuff.

There's also an extreme NT personality (which I find annoying tbh) which is where they have the opposite personality to an autistic person. In my experience, these people aren't very bright or even nice... They love to gossip and hate anything intellectual and tease people. Bear in mind it's just my experience.

My mum is a typical NT and she's in between. She doesn't gossip loads but she has a few friends, gossips more than I'm comfortable with, rarely parties or gets drunk, doesn't talk about geeky intellectual stuff with me and my stepdad but listens to that stuff on the radio, has different modes. She tells me 'I'm in comic book mode' or 'I'm in literary novel mode' etc and you have to tailor the conversation to meet her intellect at that particular time... And she's amazing at actual people skills like putting people in a good mood or smoothing things over between people (playing diplomat) in an argument, to me that's far more important than popularity or seeming 'normal'.

I think my brother is NT with autistic tendencies, or at least PDD-NOS. He has always had low self-esteem issues, is rather shy, and has suffered with depression and anxiety since he was a teenager. But other than that, he's never had sensory issues, or need for routine, or had any special interests or repetitive behaviours, and he fitted in well at school among the popular kids despite being shy, and even now he makes friends quite easily and enjoys social gatherings. The only time he isolates himself is if he's having one of his bouts of depression, which involves him crying and feeling angry.

But he still somehow got a diagnosis of Asperger's (or HFA) last year. I reckon he lied on his assessment form though, as I read through it and there were a lot of behaviours that he didn't have as a child that he ticked. I'd know that because I was close and I knew him well. I was diagnosed with Asperger's in childhood but nobody ever suspected him to have Asperger's, not in a million years.

I think that people with something called "nonverbal learning disability" are not NT...

I would say that someone who is NT would be not socially inadequate and would not present "peculiarity" since childhood.

I think that I might be considered NT despite the fact that I received Asperger syndrome diagnosis when I was about 17 years old. I have no need of sameness and predictability, sensory overloads. I think in words and had VIQ 22 points higher than PIQ. I think that in Northern America I would be diagnosed with NVLD instead of ASD despite my "weirdness" and not-so-good functioning in life. Personally I think that many people diagnosed with "just" NVLD have certain sort of autism... NVLD can often be a pervasive developmental disability IMO.