What led to diagnosis?

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I have never been diagnosed with Asperger's, but I've recently started reading about autism and Asperger's because I'm interested in becoming a school psychologist. I've been reading Tony Attwood's books like mad and I really relate to a lot of the symptoms of Asperger's...but not ALL. I took the follow unofficial Asperger's quiz - any of you taken this? - and scored a 30...way above the average 16.5, but a couple points short of an Asperger's diagnosis.

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testi ... 0153908026

I'd like to talk to a professional about this, but to be honest I'm afraid my Asperger's tendencies won't be enough for me to receive a diganosis, and I will have wasted my time and money, not to mention a little of my intelligence if it turns out I am way wrong...

For those of you with an official diagnosis - what led you to seek one? And for those of you with a self-diagnosis - what makes you you feel confident in your diagnosis? Also, has anyone seen a professional and NOT been diagnosed (fallen short of a diagnosis)?

Thanks, everybody!

You will not waste your time and money by going to a doctor and talk it over =) First of, if you think there is something wrong with yourself psichologically, there surely is something wrong indeed =) I'd just recommend to not go just looking towards being diagnosed with AS, since that makes it seem like "the goal" you're after rather than just looking for an answer to a question you have =) If you have anything in you you that's bothering you, whether it is because of AS or not, it is good to talk it over, therefore, if you can pay the doctor, do go there. You might not be diagnosed as an aspie, but you'll surely learn something new out of it and possibly receive some help with dealing anything thats bothering you, or those traits in you that make you think you might have AS.

I was pretty sure I fit the criteria, and I wanted to know for sure so that I could feel less unsure about myself. I always knew I was different, and now that I know for sure why, I can make more sense of it.

Many will have different views on whether to go for diagnosis or not; if you search this site you'll find many discussions about it. It's a personal thing and depends on why you want the diagnosis.

See what you get on this test:
http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php

I went through a few of the questions on the test you took and it is similar in content to what was JUST posted, but the scoring is set up differently.

On the other it is out of 200 and my score was 147.

I have been teetering on the edge of accepting that I could have AS, since my daughter was dx'd this summer and while I felt it to be true, I have also been apprehensive about accepting it without the official dx.

I was not interested in being assessed a couple of days ago, when I first posted, but since then, things have drastically changed for me.

I began posting here and while I half expected it to be the case, it came as a complete shock how many things I have swept under the carpet, masked or otherwise weaseled my way out of without ever having a second thought.

I was floored to hear others detailed accounts that so very closely matched my daily living...

I have functioned reasonably well for so long it was very confusing for me to have people here agree with and relate to my traits.

This brought me to a whole day of tears, as reality hit home, today.

I am off to see a Dr., as soon as I can for the pure and simple fact that I am not actually functioning well. I have just mastered snake tactics. I mimic well. I hide well. I play my ecclectic lifestyle choices up! But I have also just recognized a number of areas where I am struggling quite alot, such as:

I have come close to losing what little social interaction I do have, since I have isolated myself quite terribly this time around.

I have been insensitive, cold and practiced quite alot of avoidance in my workplace (before leaving on mat leave a year ago), which had me in some very intense mediated meetings with coworkers

I have allowed my special interests to take charge and override most everything I do in a day, both home and work.

I am brutally honest and have not been careful to practice discretion/censorship when opening my mouth

I have very little desire to look anyone in their eyes and have noticed a fairly negative reaction to it more recently

My poor family is left standing in complete aww at my completely irrational meltdowns, while stood in their gear waiting on me to lock up for the day out and I refuse to leave the house while shouting and saying insane things about myself

That said, it took a bit of a kick in the @$$ and alot of WP to get me to this point of accepting I AM IN FACT VERY AS and realize now that if I do not at least take steps to secure a dx, I could risk many of the positives I do currently have.

I definitely have AS and it is much like finding true love, once you know, you JUST KNOW!

Hope you find what you are looking for...

xx

I have always felt different. The reason I got the diagnose was that I started to see a welfare officer about my deep depression. I had then been depressed many times in life but this time I couldn't get up by myself.. We talked about my life and after many meetings I talked a little about my biggest interest and that I didn't like to play with other children when I was little, that I didn't like sports and many other things. She mentioned AS and I said that some people online had told me that they thought I may have AS. She then asked me if I wanted to take some tests and meet the psychologist about it and I agreed. They also sent a big bunch of papers with questions to my parents since they wanted to know how I functioned between I was 0-16 years..

Got my diagnose in December 2006.

My mother started looking up autism again after my social problems in grade 7 and grade 8. I was a little way thru grade 8 at the time she was looking the stuff up. She found this stuff on AS, which she hadn't heard of before, and decided it fit me and we went to have me diagnosed during the summer betweeen grades 8 and 9.

30 is kind of a tough call. I took it again to remember how that test scores, and I scored a 40, and I mostly pass for "normal" (albeit eccentric, reclusive, non-social, and with intense interests). No non-aspie has ever asked me if I was one myself. I haven't been diagnosed, but have dived into the subject obsessively enough that I know that I could be diagnosed if I ever chose to.

To sort of answer your question, I realized it when my father-in-law, who is a doctor, suggested that my son had AS. The more I learned, the more I believed him. Later, a social worker, after meeting him briefly, said that she thought he "might be a little autistic." I'd say more than a little. Since it runs in families, and I had most of the symptoms he does (and a couple that he doesn't), it wasn't hard to figure out.

With a score of 30, you're pretty borderline, but there is a category that you might be comfortable with. Aspies traditionally refer to them as "cousins," due to the fact that many of us have some fairly odd relatives. Maybe not quite diagnosable, but some of the signs are clear enough. To researchers, they are now recognized as an "autistic phenotype," a stuffier way of saying the same thing.

The test you took was based on Simon Baron-Cohen's AQ test, and that study was interesting in that he considered people with scores of 32+ to be autistic, even if they were not diagnosably so. (He was using the AS criteria from DSM-IV, which requires that the person be significantly disabled or clinically distressed by their condition, and many of them were not distressed.) That was another acknowledgement that there are a lot of autistic sorts around (he estimated 2% of the population) who can't quite be officially labelled as autistic.

That is because the diagnostic criteria are based on the idea that all forms of autism are a disorder. You don't write diagnostic criteria for anything which is NOT a disease or disorder, so to the American Psychiatric Association, if you're happy and productive, you cannot be autistic. The observation that this view conflicts with reality is starting to catch on, so the cousins are beginning to get some official recognition, finally.

You can go for a diagnosis if you believe it important, or if it will help you in some way, and perhaps you will get one. If you don't, you're still probably in the "autistic phenotype" category. So, nice to meet you, cuz!

My profile says I'm diagnosed but I have never actually been officially diagnosed on paper. When I was a kid, I saw a psychologist who told my mom I had a pervasive developmental disorder that she thought was autistic (this is back in like 1993 or 1994 before AS gained the recognition it has today). Later, my speech therapist and occupational therapist told me I had it, and from then on everyone accepted it as fact. It has never been questioned that I have Aspergers. And now, just this year, building on 11 years of consensus, my Special Ed professor, who specializes in diagnosing Aspergers, says that I definitely have it. But there is no official paperwork on it. Does that count as a diagnosis?

I got 41/50 and 152AS/36NT for the first and second test respectivly, and if I do have AS it's not a very noticeable difference except to me. I have been asked once if I have AS (the first time I heard about it) by somebody I'd never met but spoken to online, though he is good friends with a lot of people who know me.

I took the test you posted and I scored 41..

I was Dx'ed in the mid 80's with HFA after my parents noticed that I never liked playing with other kids, was very aloof, spinned stuff, and had trouble in school, the teachers said I was 'difficult and my language was slighly delayed and I labeled stuff wrong.

I had other issues, those were the main red flags at least back then, now they get more specific it seems, but I feel, if I was to get a DX now days I would qualify for AS, as Im pretty smart and very high functioning, in fact, i have talked to someone else DX'ed with HFA and their are considerable differences between us (as adults, we may have been similar as children).

Like many people, I felt very different from everyone else in secondary school. In infants/primary school I had always been a loner, but never really realised that I was different to everyone else because I was always in my own little world. In secondary school it started to become more obvious that I was different. I had depression for years and basically felt that there was something seriously wrong with me. I didn't understand why I was different, or why I struggled with things others seemed to find so easy. Unfortunately, I went from being a very good student to having the depression affect my grades, which made matters even worse.

The first mention of autism was when watching a documentary on the Rain Man DVD, about autism, although it focused on a couple of savants. I haven't watched it in a long time, so I might try to watch it again soon... Basically, my then boyfriend said that it sounded like me, and from then on referred to me as autistic (half joking). I would have been about 15 or 16 at the time.

After we broke up (when I was 17) I just happened to be reading a magazine from cover to cover (I'm an obsessive reader) and came across a problem page where a woman described her daughter. I can't remember exactly how she described her as it was quite a long time ago but she sounded similar to me from the small amount of information given. The reply was that it could be Asperger's Syndrome. I didn't know what that was, so as I always do when I come across things I don't understand or know about, I looked it up to find out what it was. When I first discovered what AS was, I wasn't convinced that I had it but it must have provoked some curiousity, because I stuck with researching it.

I also told an online friend about it, and asked his opinion. He researched it and also looked up some other things that might explaint 'the way I am' - the only other option was CAPD which didn't cover as much as AD did. Anyway, my friend gradually became convinced that I was autistic. He also convinced me that I should get a diagnosis for peace of mind. I decided not to bother because I did not want to bring it up with my parents, but my AS also happened to become even more apparent in university (unfamiliar place, unfamiliar people, completely different lifestyle to the one I'm used to, too much group work, etc.) so I did bring it up to my parents, and eventually got an appointment with my GP to be referred.

Luckily for me, my GP's son has AS, so he knew enough about it to take me seriously (I've heard a lot of stories where GPs told patients that they didn't have it, or even laughed at them). In fact, my mother had a Drs appointment a few days before I had mine, and she brought it up with him and he asked her some questions, she answered, and he told her I should make an appointment to see him to be referred (he didn't realise at the time that I already had one booked). His opinion improved my confidence in pursuing it.

The referral itself is a long story as I was referred by my GP, was refused funding by my local authority and told I had to get a psychiatrist's opinion before they'd refer me for a proper assessment, heard nothing for ages, saw my uni psychiatrist who also expressed that he felt Asperger's was a likely diagnosis (again, this improved my confidence in pursuing a diagnosis), but he was not able to diagnose me himself or refer me while my GP was referring me, found out that the referral had gone to the wrong place, then when I did finally go to be assessed by the Mental Health Team they didn't know why I was there and I saw a nurse and a student instead of a psychiatrist (both of them knew nothing about ASDs).

So I requested that I be referred to the CLASS clinic as it was free (so funding would not be an issue) and in April this year, three days after I turned 20, I was assessed there and diagnosed.

I scored a 33, and I have NLD. The neuropsych did consider AS though (and they brought it up- I didn't mention it), so I guess I can seem sort of Aspie-ish sometimes. Oh, and what led to my diagnosis was lifelong problems with visual-spatial impairments that I wanted some answers about.

Dunno if I have it either, but I started reading about this because somebody suggested my 5 year old might have it. I score about the same as you on that test, but it seems to be checking for a specific type of AS (the math and numbers type). My main things have always been reading and music.

Thanks for all the comments. And Belle, thanks for the other quiz, I really prefer it to the one I found. A lot of the questions really "hit home." (OK, I hate cliches but I couldn't think of any other way to word it, lol.) I scored a 139/200; it claims I am "very likely an Aspie."

The more I think about it, the more I feel I don't NEED a proper diagnosis, because even though I have never functioned completely "normally" (if there is such a thing), I have always considered myself very shy and eccentric and have gotten by just fine with that explanation. An Asperger's diagnosis WOULD explain a lot of things about me, though - namely, intense interests, little tics, a need to have a plan and stick to the routine (or at least be warned of a change!), sensory sensitivities, and the tendency for people to think I am attacking them when I am simply stating an opinion.

To be diagnosed, is it true that the symptoms need to sort of interrupt your life? I mean, while I do feel socially different, it's not making me depressed or hurting my current relationships or employment or anything...Does this mean I don't qualify for a diagnosis?

Anyway, I have a lot of thinking to do...Thanks for all your help, everybody!

~ Adrie