Is there a such thing as "slight" Aspergers?

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So, this is my first post....

Just to give you some history, I'm a 31 yo male with a wife and 2 kids. I work FT within the IT field and make a good salary (100K+). Throughout my life I've had a very hard time in any social situation and making friends in general. Honestly, I've never had any meaningful relationships with anyone in elementary/middle/high school and even college. The relationships that I had with people have been generally "business" related where the relationship was centered around the "venue" (i.e. a lab partner, work friend, class mate), and no further contact or continuation occurred after I left that setting. As you can also imagine I was a easy target for general bullying within school. When I was young a had a huge obsession taking things apart. I would take phones, TVs, Radios, etc. apart to see what was inside and build various electronic devices with them. I went to psychologist/psychiatrist and various other mental health professionals while I was in high school and later in college. I was having a very hard time adjusting in college and very large difficulty trying to make friends. Anyway several people (including my wife and a co-worker) that I've known indicate they believe I have some "light autism"/aspergers? I've been told this when I was much younger as well. Also I tend to feel much of what I've learned on how to deal with people is through a "mechanical" process, (i.e. duplicating what I see others do during a social situation). I don't spend too much time trying to "immerse" myself into a social environment simply because people are not really interesting to me. I tend to be more interested in mechanical systems, engineering, etc... I've reviewed various symptoms of Aspergers and they seem to correlate real well to a lot of the behaviors that I have. However, it seems persons with autism spectrum disorders usually have significant impairment through most areas of their lives.

So,

Are there any behaviors/indicators that would disqualify one from an autistic spectrum disorder?

This question may sound dumb, but since autism is a spectrum disorder, then there are those persons who could have a very mild case?

Also, what movies/documentaries represent aspergers persons and their symptoms accurately?

Yes, any condition must be significantly impairing to warrant a diagnosis. BAP (Broad Autism Phenotype) is an appropriate term for "mild" autism.

Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP) describes people with mild autistic traits without significant impairment.

No, there's only a range of characteristics that might place you somewhere on the autistic spectrum, but there's no such thing as a 'defining trait' that might exclude you from it.



Not a stupid question at all, and as other have indicated it is quite possible to be 'mildly' autistic.



If you find one, let us know.

Thanks,

When I google BAP, it comes up with an exam, I took this exam on OK cupid (forced me to sign up) anyway it comes up with this.

Autistic/BAP
You scored 113 aloof, 87 rigid and 102 pragmatic
You scored above the cutoff on all three scales. Clearly, you are either autistic or on the broader autistic phenotype. You probably are not very social, and when you do interact with others, you come off as strange or rude without meaning to. You probably also like things to be familiar and predictable and don't like changes, especially unexpected ones.

I know this is not scientific, but....

BAP, as far as I know, isn't covered by the new DSM-5 manual. As a matter of fact, since they collapsed all related autism diagnoses into one category, ASD, I suspect BAP may not even exist anymore.

I mean, it figures though, considering how all this business about autism is relatively new anyway.

Here is a link to parts 1 and 2 from a BBC Horizon documentary about the code-breaker Alan Turing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyusnGbBSHE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LHFzNMgWzw

The reasons I have posted these links is because:
1.) No one knows for sure if Turing was an Aspie, but some suspect he was. He also liked to take things apart, build things for himself, was a successul man during the war, and was able to have some brief relationships. His idiosyncrasies were tolerated at Bletchley Park. It was after the war that he suffered terrible prejudice, but because of his homosexuality.
2.) The documentary was made in the 90s, when Asperger's would have been pretty much unheard of, so the colleagues who talk about him aren't being influenced by the later rumours that he may have been autisitic. However, they do say that people did not interest him, he chained his tea mug to the radiator, and other things which sound somewhat Aspie like.

Sorry, if you know this already!