AS or physical damage from meningitis?

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I told my elderly mother about my recent AS diagnosis and she is still in denial, even though she acknowledges that my behaviour and symptoms fit the profile of AS.

She wanted to know if the psych had read my medical notes before diagnosing me, and whether I had mentioned this in the interview. I said of course I had, and surely it would be an irresponsible doctor who wouldn't have read all the relevant background before arriving at such a diagnosis.

I reminded my mother that the only reason I didn't get diagnosed in childhood was because AS didn't "exist" (at least in the English-speaking world) until I was already about 25 years old. I got pulled out of school for testing at least twice that I could remember, but because I wasn't intellectually ret*d they wouldn't diagnose me with autism and I got no support.

My mother still believes that my problems in school were because of one of the doctors told her I could be mildly brain damaged after surviving meningitis more than 43 years ago. However, I'm struggling to understand what exact damage could have been done that could almost exactly mirror the characteristics of AS, including all the sensory hypersensitivities etc. From what I understand, meningitis causes a blood clot/scarring, which I would assume would be fairly localized somewhere, whereas AS seems pretty pervasive.

This is more for my own understanding and clarification than anything else.

i don't see how meningitis could affect an otherwise nt brain in ways that could cause a lifetime of aspergerslike sensitivities or personality type affectations.

That's a new one. My brother had meningitis, and did lose his hearing. He's not the autistic one in the family, though...

I know someone who got meningitis when she was middle aged, and after that she became a bit 'autistic': increased adherence to routines, reluctance towards change and other symptoms that look somewhat like autistic symptoms.
I do not say that meningitis made her autistic - autism is a neurological developmental disorder, and you don't get autism suddenly at a ripe age.

However, meningitis does 'hit you hard in the head', and you are likely to suffer mild brain damage of some sort.
The evolution-wise 'youngest' brain structures (such as the frontal lobes) are the most vulnerable and most prone to damage whether the damage is caused by meningitis or by whatever causes autism (autists seem to have less well-functioning frontal lobes, among other things). So slight frontal lobe damage could be the common denominator.

I do not have the impression that the damage from meningitis is localized. The person I know got problems in a lot of departments (from reading to walking, for instance).

The following symptoms could all be confused with ASD although are not necessarily the full stable of traits, so I can understand your mother's concern:

http://www.meningitis-trust.org/meningi ... emotional/
http://www.meningitis-trust.org/meningi ... l-changes/
Source: http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/meni ... z2NFnNAgPX

tantrums, depression, difficulty expressing emotions, anxiety, reduced IQ, clumsiness, sleep disorders, problems with memory, concentration and planning (like executive dysfunction in ASDs), children who have meningitis may experience cognitive impairment and developmental delay.

My father had meningitis when he was 6, therefore he had speech and motor skills delay (he learned to speak and walk when he was 7). After that, he developed many traits of AS, ADHD and also he developed vocal tics.
But autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, tic disorder and other mental disorders run into my family, therefore he probably developed those traits because there was a genetic predisposition to it.

I've read about PANDAS, which can mimic the symptoms of Tourette Syndrome, and/or O.C.D. , eventhough it's caused by the onset of strep infection. This is why physicians, and psychologists, try to rule out all possible causes of symptoms/charecteristics, before making an official diagnosis.

It's not necessarily localized. Maningitis is an infection of the meninges - the mesh surrounding the brain. The resulting swelling puts pressure on the brain, and the brain tissue itself can get infected (encephalitis). The meninges are all around the outside of your brain, so in severe meningitis, you could have swelling and pressure everywhere.

Also, how old were you when you got meningitis? A localized deficit, acquired at an early age, can have a broader impact than one acquired in adulthood. For example, say an adult loses the ability to perceive slight changes in pitch. This'll mess up their ability to perceive tone of voice, but they'll still read facial expressions and have a good knowledge base about how people think and why they do things. In contrast, a child who gets the same issue in infancy will get less information about people's thoughts and feelings throughout most of their development. They'll have less feedback with which to calibrate their developing facial expression recognition skills. They'll have less information with which to form theories about how people think and feel. In school, a lag in social skills might make it harder for them to make friends, thereby depriving them of the lessons about social skills that most people learn by hanging out with friends. The kid might gravitate to solitary activities because socializing is frustrating. As a result, a single specific deficit in a specific aspect of social skills ends up evolving into a generalized difficulty with many social skills.