Confusing Asperger's Diagnosis
My oldest brother has a hard time believing that I could've been diagnosed with ASD. For instance he points out, in referencing to Asperger-Advice.com, that people with Asperger's may have large & clumsy gestures. In relation to speech, people with Asperger's may also have abnormalities of inflection & idiosyncratic use of words. In the National Institute of Neurological Disorders & Stroke, they also add that people with Asperger's may have clumsy & uncoordinated motor movements.
It's therefore interesting to note that, according to DSM IV in their Diagnostic Criteria for Asperger's (299.80), there's NO mention of clumsy gestures & uncoordinated movements and there is NO mention of abnormalities with speech. No wonder there are all these conflicting schools of thought regarding the subject - and probably the reason why DSM-V will be eliminating Asperger's altogether and just incorporating it into their general ASD.
DSM-V does make mention of speech abnormality in regards to the use of idiosyncratic phrases & poorly-integrated verbal communication but they omit anything having to do with clumsy & uncoordinated motor movements (unless this is what "stereotyped" motor movements mean).
In any case, with the new DSM-V criteria, I'd probably be "re-diagnosed" as being Level 1 in severity. I guess all of these issues are still hot button topics and will be till DSM-V comes out. I can't wait.
It is not necessary to have every symptom of a disease or every trait of a disorder, in order to have that disease or disorder. It is only necessary to have a greater number of the symptoms or traits than would be expected to be found in a normal, healthy person.
I have Asperger's with Avoident Personality Disorder (AvPD) and Executive Function Disorder (EFD) as comorbids with it. Growing up with all of this naturally caused life long depression as another comorbid, but I am managing the depression better now that I live alone. Living with relatives was too stressful. I have a lot of the Asperger's traits, but not all of them. Now I need to work on my EFD.
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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.--Henry David Thoreau
Well... that's not always true. As you pointed out, it's not a diagnostic criterion.
With that said, my fine motor skills have developed decently with age, while my gross motor skills are ..tragically subpar. I really think it depends on the person.
While t doesn't really seem like your brother has much license to question your diagnosis, it would be fair to take his opinion into account if you've spent your whole life with him (I'm just guessing here, I don't want to say anything definitive ) Unless you think he's way off
Listening to his perspective doesn't mean you have to agree
fortunately.
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"If you look deeply emough into any person's soul, you can see the emu within them struggling to get out. Actually, most people don't have emus in their soul. Just me." - Invisible Dave, Lady of Emus
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