Questions about AS

Post Reply New Topic

Hi all,
I would like some opinions on something I am struggling to get clarification on.

I have suspected for a number of years that I might have Asperger's or some similar condition. I score very highly on self test questionaires (although I am sceptical about their potential accuracy) and seem to have most of the symptoms associated with the condition, each to a varying degree of severity.
There are however, traits I don't have, such as, I tend to read the emotions of others pretty well, whether through facial expressions, tones of voice etc. I don't usually know what to do with that knowledge but the ability to detect emotions in others is fairly natural and intuitive.
I don't take things too literally or have trouble understanding metaphores or figures of speech and will use such things freely and in the correct manner casually.

Are such problems a necessity in a diagnosis of AS? Or am I being overly pedantic with the list of symptoms/traits?
Is there anybody here who has a confimed diagnosis who also doesn't struggle with these things? Or do I more likely have some other type of condition that simply has similarities to AS?

Any insight on this subject would be very appreciated.

Many thanks.

-Matt-

No, it's not a necessity for a diagnosis. It's just one symptom of autism, and you don't have to have all the symptoms. I am a diagnosed Aspie, and I think I am pretty good at reading others.

Hi Matt, the things you mentioned caused a lot of confusion for me before. I've watched a lot of TV my whole life so I wonder if it taught me a lot about facial expressions and humor. Comedies are my favourite genre and I don't struggle to interpret faces and body language or figures of speech in that context. Humor has also always been extremely prevalent in my family, but looking back at my childhood I remember having to learn from a LOT of misinterpretations on my part, like freaking out or getting upset because I didnt realize something was just a joke. I find that in real life situations it is still sometimes a problem.

In real life I think I interpret things less objectively and perceive things with paranoia and tend to err on the negative. I still find I say "I can see that you're really mad at me..." or "I can tell I've bored you" and "you didn't sound like you were just kidding" only to be told countless times by different people that it's all in my head... so I believe I've learned ways to read people...as long as I'm not in a self loathing headspace or require any actual intuition. My lack of intuition more obviously presents itself in scenarios requiring basic common sense, like cooking or organization.

The things I think most distinguish me as aspergian are my strong aversion to social situations, my brains constant need to over analyze everything and how easily I get overwhelmed. I have been diagnosed. I think it's important to remember no two aspies have identical struggles and that symptoms are common results of our neurological wiring and experience, rather than defining criteria.

I can read the emotions of people I know well, but struggle with those I don't.
The same goes for taking things literally. If it's a complete stranger talking to me then figures of speech or metaphors will leave me confused because there's too much for me to process and I can only focus on key words. With people I know, I get used to their way of saying things as they do tend to use the same figures of speech.

So the way I live now, those aspects of ASD are not really a problem for me, but if I was meeting new people on a regular basis it would be.

It's a very hard question to get a reliable answer to. Studying ASD in a professional diagnostic manual might be helpful. If you're in the USA, the most relevent one would likely be the DSM-V. Here's the section on ASD:

https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autis ... c-criteria

Here are some guidelines which might help you to use that:

https://depts.washington.edu/dbpeds/Scr ... eb2013.pdf

Section A2 in DSM-V seems to be the relevent part for that:
"Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, ranging, for example, from poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication; to abnormalities in eye contact and body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures; to a total lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication."

If you then look at A2 in the guidelines pdf, you'll see a lot of specific examples of the kind of things that would meet that diagnostic criterion.

You could, in theory at least, do a similar thing for each trait that you think you might not have. But you'd need to be highly diligent and work through the entire set of diagnostic criteria, and where possible seek corroboration of your self-assessed traits from somebody who knows you well. Even then, you might not get a clear-cut answer. It's unlikely to be a substitute for a professional diagosis, but sadly I know of a case where one professional concluded that a client did not have ASD yet a second diagnostician concluded that they did have it, and I've also heard a lot of anecdotal evidence that professional diagnosticians often get the result wrong. So whether you do it yourself or trust a professional, the result won't be absolutely reliable. Like many things in life, all you can do is plug away at it until you feel that it's reasonably safe to conclude that you have ASD or you don't.

ASD is a spectrum disorder, so you may well find that you have some of the traits but not others, yet still have ASD. And borderline cases must exist where the traits are so near the (somewhat arbitrary) cutoff point that the question "do I have it or not?" becomes impossible to answer definitively. Unlike many disabilities, if your coping strategies are good, the professionals are unlikely to give you a positive diagnosis. That has always seemed silly to me.

If you don't need an official diagnosis for political reasons (e.g. to help access benefits and services or obtain adjustments at work or school), I wouldn't worry much about whether or not you have ASD, because it's such a subjective question. Instead, I'd focus on identifying your individual traits. If you seem to have quite a few of the traits, then it's worth the effort of looking at them all, because it's likely that you'll have most of them. You'll then have a lot of specific self-knowledge about the traits that seem disabled in you, and can go about finding good coping strategies for them.

I can also read body language and tone of voice and that's part the reason I didn't think I had an ASD; but I have been diagnosed due to other symptoms.
I'm on the borderline though so just enough to be considered as on the spectrum. A diagnosis helped me as I had trouble in employment bu now I know why and what I can do to adapt.

Did you maybe struggle with these things when you were younger and have just learned how to do them as you age?

It might be worth asking a parent, guardian, or someone who knew you when you were young about these things. Most of the time, you'll be asked to bring one along when you get assessed.

Another thing worth considering is whether you actually do have these issues, but maybe you can't judge your relative deficiencies accuracy - after all, you've only ever been you.

It could be a slightly more complicated picture than perhaps you think.

Most of the autistic people I know (IRL and online) know the basics of non-figurative language and have no trouble with a number of common figures of speech, but will get caught out every once in a while by some ground ball turn of phrase.

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate the clarification.

There are other forms of non-verbal communication I do have trouble with such as, maintaining a decent level of eye contact, facing people when I talk to them, both of which I have improved on but only through consious effort and only after someone has pointed out to me that I am not doing it. And although I am perfectly capable of reading most body language, I can often be oblivious to more subtle or complex social cues/body language.

In my case, there are some symptoms that I obviously possess, such as my inability to make and maintain friendships, my almost nonexistant conversational skills, my obsessive and intensly focused behaviour with regards to whatever sparks my interest that day/week, etc. But there are a lot of things with regards to symptoms/diagnostic criteria that everybody has to some degree and having only ever been myself, it's hard to tell whether these kind of symptoms, though present, would be considered within the normal range or outside of the normal range.

Anywho, I will try and wrap this post up before I end up unintentionally writing my memoirs. I have a Doctors appointment booked for Monday and will raise the subject with her and request a referal to a specialist and get it checked out properly.

Thanks again for your help.