developing autism long after childhood?

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So the official diagnosis of aspergers and autism is to have basically been born from it.
But I question this. I, and others, have asked if it's possible to develop autism later in life. There certainly seems to be a lot of people who think that they may have developed it after having a regular childhood, or who developed it later in childhood than infancy. I've questioned myself with that, especially after I developed depression and after a year or so it got to a point where I didn't feel sad anymore but still definitely felt off. (I still call it depression, because there's nothing else to call it, but it's odd how large the spectrum of it is in me.)

Anyways, my own personal experiences aside, my question is more about the plausibility of that being possible. In my mind, it seems highly likely, as least with the paltry amount of knowledge we have about autism.
Firstly, although there seems to be familial patterns of autism, there's no clear genetic cause. That in itself already makes me question the 'only from birth' aspect of autism. If it's not 100% genetics, then obviously environment plays an important role.
There seems to be little research done on what about the environment in the womb would cause it, nothing about what or even when. And there's plenty of people who are implicating all sorts of things, like vaccines or gluten or other toxins, that they say caused their child's autism. Isn't it a little strange that we've categorized austism as something that occurs in 'infancy only' when we don't know what causes it and furthermore the only 'pure' way for something to be infancy only, it isn't?

The thing is, especially with someone who has rather high functioning autism or aspergers, I hear that some people can get by alright. They fake it and they're fine, or they've gotten good at applying logic to things like social cues and the situation and they can manage.
Thinking about it that way, that there's ways of 'getting around' problems someone with autism might have, I see little proof that people just don't develop it later in life.
Let's pretend, for the sake of argument, that it's possible for a 10 year old to develop autism. What happens to their first 10 years of NT learning and life? Autism changes the mind/brain and how it works. But their memories and experiences would still be intact in a large way though, I would suppose, and I think that would be huge. They might be able to function just fine, even while their personality changes.

I guess even if this were the case, that an adult could develop autism, and they could function alright and wouldn't be overly put upon by it, that there'd be a much reduced need for a diagnosis. Especially if you think like I do, and if you function alright, then I wouldn't say you 'had' it anyways; what's the point in a diagnosis for a disorder if you don't act particularly 'disordered'?

What do you think? Do you think that if you were NT for a few years of your life starting right now, and then you returned to having autism, that you'd function differently or better? Is my knowledge about this enough such that my hypothesis makes sense? (ie: have I missed out on something critical that makes this moot?)

Now the real reason I wonder about this is because of me. I just seem to have a lot of things that indicate that I have developed autistic tendancies since my depression. I have celiac disease (the gluten thing), and my dad, although never officially diagnosed, if swear if he had been born in the 1990s instead of the 1940s he'd have been diagnosed as autistic. (He apparently never even spoke until he was 5 o.0), and I show signs of it myself, although I still don't think I was 'off' during my childhood. I had friends. I was kinda arrogant, but what kid isnt'? I score in the 'autism' spectrum using unofficial questionnaires that ask about it, although I fall well short of meeting official criteria.
Moreover, I also know that what determines the vast majority of personality/mood disorders isn't very...I don't want to say scientific, but I don't know what else to use. There's no blood test to determine whether you have a mental illness, nor even brain scans, (although they are used in research, but not diagnostically.) And if you have a social disorder, obviously it's got to be not just an issue with the person, but how they fit into the current society. I've got a degree in psychology, so I'm not just pulling this completely out of thin air. I learned how to statistically model and make a questionnaire, how illness is determined, and while I see the necessity for having cut-offs for disorders, I fully believe the reality of the human condition isn't one of strict definitions and guidelines when it comes to mentality.

Developing autism later would not mean necessarily that you "did not have autism as a child", only that the symptoms have become more pronounced or that you are now just starting to notice that you are different. In adult hood, when we start going out into the world, the "sheltered" life where it is okay to be shy, be obsessed, and stay inside all day studying your heart out, completely goes away.

But, if you want "throughout life effects", there are a number of things being studied, just not as well know. For example, people who do not believe I am an Aspie have claimed things like: psychological abuse (such as from parents), bulling, not enough "hugs," emf radiation, a placebo effect in that you have it because you want it, demonic influence, side effects of food allergies (as you mentioned), high-school anti-rebellion (where some want to go with the crowd, you want to go opposite of it, but at the same time, you do not want to agree with your parents), just "different," the internet/computers/being anti-social because you spend too much time online thus impairing your communication skills which also results in lower muscle tone, and so on.

While they can certainly make things more pronounced and establish anxieties (My mother sometimes make fun of how I sound/talk so I have become fairly self-conscious about it), that does not remove the initial problem - Why are we responding to the world like this? It is kind of a chicken or egg situation.

In terms of psychology, most people do not start trying to figure themselves out UNTIL they enter adulthood. So I am not particularly surprised that most people more mild on the spectrum do not notice until then.

While it is clear I'm on the autistic spectrum looking back at my childhood, I was essentially just regarded as 'odd' and somewhat 'eccentric' most of my life. I'm now in my fifties. However, I don't think my symptoms became strongly apparent until my early twenties when cyclothymia also kicked in. So maybe you have co-morbids or other issues which are compounding your existing, low-level autism and only becoming apparent now.

I think one of the things you are missing is that while we are not diagnosing with them yet, we are researching and finding differences in brain structure of people with ASDs. We can physically see differences between autistic brains and non-autistic brains in MRIs. They aren't huge differences, but they're there.

You can't "develop" Autism as an adult. It's a developmental disorder. Some of us find that our symptoms become more obvious the older we get.

I think it's possible that it could be caused by something environmental. I think it would be wrong to assume it's simply a developmental disorder and you can only have it from birth. Some people's brains aren't different when they're born, but they become different through disease or injury. It is proven some diseases and tumours of the brain can cause autism. In this kind of case it's called secondary autism.
I don't think we should rule out the possibility of autism being caused by other things either, especially things that can effect the brain. I don't know what studies are going on, but I would think there are some looking into the causes of autism.

Not in the normal sense. Autism exists from birth as a difference in brain structure and as such does not develop later in life. However, it may well be possible to adapt autistic traits into your personality as an adult as a way of coping with certain situations. Thus, you would appear autistic spectrum without actually being autistic.

Doesn't make any sense to me.
If you wind up with traits of autism later in life, that would make sense.
At the same time, your developing those traits would not be autism, nor would your resulting state!
You'd have psychological or mental damage resulting in those traits.
You'd still be welcome in our forums, of course... if you have the traits, it's likely that we'll have common experiences and common coping strategies to share.

Maybe it just wasn't noticed until later?

When I was a teenager and had to go to family court that sent us some reports about me in the mail. They referred to me "becoming symptomatic" in fourth grade but I had problems long before that. It was just that I switched schools when I went to fourth grade. In the previous school I had few friends but I think the kids there were just used to me. The new kids thought I was weird and that was when the bullying got really bad.

I'm not sure what they were specifically referring to by "becoming symptomatic". I didn't have a diagnosis. I guess that's when the school actually noticed that I had a lot of problems.

Exactly. Some of us have found that some symptoms are more noticeable when we get older. But they were still there when we were younger.

Would it just be best to make a brainscan to diagnose autism then?

1. This is still in the research stages.

2. MRIs are expensive. They don't often have many of them in hospitals. They run the machines 24/7, even when they don't run other tests that late. My MRIs (related to my migraines) were scheduled at times that I had to check in in the ER because radiology wasn't open.

3. Brain scans require the patient to lie still for a half hour if they're looking at more than blood vessels.

It's not something we're ready for yet. It's something that'd be likely good in the future. Getting off of diagnosing by looking at behaviors and onto looking at neurology is something I'd be highly supportive of though.

It would be Schizoid PD or Simple Schizophrenia then.

(Yes, the symptoms are pretty much the same.)

MRIs are no good for those of us with hyperacusis. It was ba enough before I developed hyperacusis.

A couple of points..

Re: MRI - It is my understanding that there are statistically significant differences in MRI scans between Autistic and NT control groups, but nothing conclusive when scanning an individual.

Re: Environmental Factors - The environmental factors that may have a role in developing Autism are believed to be while you are in the womb or during birth. This is not caused by your upbringing or some unknown environmental factors.

Your brain and personality are pretty well defined by 4-5 years of age. Late onset (rather than discovery) is another disorder or some form of brain damage.

Jason.

Autism is a developmental disorder affecting the brain connectivity in early life. So does early life trauma or insecure attachment, which can lead to personality disorders. But in autism the different brain connectivity shows early in life with specific traits. In early trauma the altered brain-conectivity can show eg only in certain situations. With attachment disorder leading to personality disorders the altered brain-connectivity is present from a certain age in childhood as well and can mimick in some certain traits autistic connectivity, but a child with only attachment disorder can eg. develop Borderline Personality Disorder and is not autistic, but BPD can also be mistaken for autism "active but odd type" and vice versa, or one can have Avoidant Personality Disorder mimicking traits of autism.