Asperger's is a rare disorder...right?

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I was unsure about this...
The psychiatrist that made my last diagnosis said to my mother that Asperger's syndrome it's a rare disorder... She didn't tell the exact ratio, but she said that it's rare... And I personally think it's true, since because of my mother's work I've known other kids with an ASD, and just few of them had AS. But I often see that people around the web say that Asperger's it's common.

Well, I live in Italy, where Asperger's syndrome is not very well-known, it's considered rare and just a few people who have it are diagnosed with it (in fact, I'm one of those few people).
Since the most of you live in the USA or in England, where AS is well-known, I wanted to ask you if it's really rare or if it's common.

It is not garden variety IMO, but it is not as rare and far between as people make it out to be, however some may be a great deal milder and thus go undiagnosed and unaccounted for.

Prototypical Asperger's is actually quite rare.

Around 1 in 10,000 or so is a number I see often. This is the lack of social and emotional reciprocity and the intense interest that precludes doing almost anything else (plus the lack of showing and understanding nonverbal cues). Typical AS.

The 1 in 250 you see includes people with PDD-NOS ("Atypical Asperger's").

Autistic Disorder is often cited around 1 in 1,000.

Working in IT if I were to take a straw poll based on the people I hang around with online it'd probably be 30% or something stupid.. but then that's the paradox.. AS symptoms (intense interest to the exclusion of anything else, very literal thinking) make great programmers. Few of those would ever show up on any kind of official diagnosis because they wouldn't think to get one - and nor should they, they're doing very well in life (apart from having no social life, but that's hugely overrated).

I suspect getting a real accurate figure is almost impossible. Or necessary, TBH. It would help enormously if people were educated enough to realize the guy sat in the corner who seems to stare at you for too long isn't an axe murderer but might actually be a nice person who doesn't speak nonverbal.

Actually, it's estimated that one in 56 American boys meet the criteria for an ASD. With that being said, PDD-NOS is probably far more common than Asperger's.

Also bear in mind that PDD-NOS is an umbrella term. It's severity can range from milder than Asperger's to extremely severe.

One child in 80- something like that- thats how many are born to be on the autism spectrum-which includes aspergers.

Is that rare enough to be considered "rare"?
Not sure.

Its 'rare' compared to tooth decay (100 percent of the population) and rare compared to left handedness (one in ten),comparable to ADHD, but common compared to hemophilia, or to cases of true permanent amnesia ( one or two cases a centurey for the whole human race).

I dunno- its a common rare condition. Or a rare common condition.

Kairi96 said: "The psychiatrist that made my last diagnosis said to my mother that Asperger's syndrome it's a rare disorder... "

Maybe Asperger is a rare disorder (around 1 in 80) or maybe expertise on Asperger is a rare ability (1 in ...)

I read ASD diagnostic rate was 1/100, compared to NVLD (my thing) being 1/1000.

My brother was commenting on the skyrocketing rates of Autism and I had to point out that nothing has changed: it's just more widely understood and actually taken seriously. For example, I've had multiple concussions thanks to bullies. If I played on a organized sports team I would be told to sit out today but back when I was a kid you were made fun by the coaches if you were suddenly finding it hard to stand and walk straight like you were just trying to get attention. Maybe people are realizing I wasn't trying to be a difficult child nor was I a 'class clown', I just didn't understand social cues and when I was told to act like everyone else I couldn't do it properly.

I would say it's still rare but not as rare as experts think. On that note, I H-A-T-E it when I'm told 'everyone is bullied' or 'everyone is socially awkward' or 'everyone has to struggle to find a job' as few even come close to the struggles I did!

AS itself isn't what I would call rare, but my AS type is rare. I'm an Aspie who have no trouble recognising body language, tone of voice, and other non-verbal expressions like that in general, and I learnt it from instinct too. Now, that is rare for an Aspie.

Also I'm an Aspie who doesn't read books. My mum and my brother does, they love reading, but I don't.

whirlingmind said:

I think AS is merely a range on a chart that everybody is on, like a frequency chart.


There are a lot of people who would never test + for AS, but have some of the pattern.


Thus to have AS or not may not be as binary 1 or 0 or "pregant or not pregnant".

Calling it a syndrome is probably not correct.

Here is a chart of what I am thinking about, to the left is "normal" or what we might call normal. To the right, AS and .... beyond?


|-----------------|----------------|---------------|------------|--------------|------------|--------------------------------|----------------------------|
Vegatable.......NT...................Dork.................Geek...........Nerd.................AS.....Engineering degree..........................PhD.............................Completely incoherent

I read or was told that around 30% of people are somewhere on the spectrum, and I would agree with this